Tips for Medical Advocacy

These suggestions are intended to assist you and your family with your health condition, whether you choose to advocate on your own behalf or engage the Lynx team of medical professions to support you in the advocacy process.

First and foremost, maintain a file including copies of all medical encounters. To help with this, we recommend that you do the following:

1) Request and complete a Medical Release Of Information Form from your Primary Care Physician’s (PCP) office.

a. If possible, establish, a relationship with one person from that practice office whom you can ask for assistance when needed.

b. Approximately two weeks following each medical specialist appointment call your PCP office and request a copy of the report from your contact person.

c. Within 48 hours following each lab test, imaging study or other diagnostic test, call your PCP office and request a copy of the report from your contact person.

d. Be prepared to contact your PCP every week, until you have received the medical record you requested. Oftentimes, specialist’s offices are slow to generate reports that need to get through a dictation process, doctors can be unavailable for signatures for lengthy periods of time, and other delays can occur.

e. Your patience, respect, and diligence are required to maintain a complete copy or all records. It is important to keep in mind that the medical system is very complicated and that each person involved in the process is trying to do his or her best, even though this may not always seem to be the case.

2) Request and complete a Medical Release of Information Form from all Hospitals and Clinics where you receive or have received treatment.

a. The Release form can be obtained from the Medical Records Office at each facility. This can usually be managed via fax. Return the form to the same office, or where directed.

b. Following every procedure or hospitalization, you must request the records from that specific encounter. This will usually require filling out a new Release of Medical Information document.

c. Surgical Reports, Procedure Reports and other documents are not typically sent to your PCP, but are commented on by the Specialist who will send a report to your PCP. It is important for you to have a copy of the actual surgery, hospitalization and/or procedure report(s).

d. To gather records from past surgeries, hospitalizations and procedures, you will need to indicate the time period and specific documents you are requesting. The Medical Records office might assist you in determining what is most useful in your situation. Oftentimes, it will be useful to have copies of the following hospital and clinic records:

• all imaging studies
• all reports, including Intake Summaries, Interim Reports, Discharge Summaries, History and Physicals
• all labs, pathology results
• it is not usually necessary to request nursing notes

3) Organize all records in one of the following ways:

a. chronological order (using actual date of encounter, rather than signature date or date ordered

b. category, such as ‘type of specialist’, ‘diagnostic studies’, etc.

Lynx Collaborative Care Network develops and maintains a current Health Summary for each client thereby facilitating their practitioner interactions, allowing attention to be focused on current and comprehensive issues while minimizing errors and inefficiencies.

For more information on these or other services, please contact us.