How To Advocate For Your Healthcare

Great question and good points. I feel self-advocacy starts with being confident in your knowledge of your condition through education. It is often scary to deal with all of the newness of being ill so education is key for me. This way I am able to talk to the doctor with some knowledge of not only my body but the condition itself. ~Racquel~ Social Health Network Moderator

1 main tip I recommend as a patient is to look up what your country’s designated patient rights. Being well informed on your legally protected healthcare rights well help a patient self advocate more effectively for themselves. A few other tips is:


1. Prepare for your appointment with your top three issues to address at your doctors appointment along with a few points of reference for these issues. This helps you focus. It also helps maximize the time you have with your medical provider.




2. Bring someone with you, or have someone present for your telehealth appointment, if possible. It’s always good to have an extra set of ears because they may help you articulate your medical needs, they may remember something you forgot to address, and they’re good resource to discuss how your appointment went.


3. As someone living with invisible medical conditions, there have been times where I’ve had medical providers, dismiss my concerns, or default, strange symptoms, to one of my invisible illnesses. When this happens, I’ve asked the doctor if we can work on what is called a “differential diagnosis “ to see if the symptoms I’m experiencing falls in line with one of my diagnosed conditions, or if the symptoms I’m experiencing cannot be explained with my diagnosed medical conditions.


4. Another tip I follow, especially if I am seeing a doctor for the first time, is I request of the scheduler for more time allotted explaining that I have multiple medical conditions and complex health and it can’t be addressed in depth in a 20 minute appointment. Sometimes, schedulers are able to block out extra time for your appointment, especially if it is a specialty appointment.


5. Bring any medical documents from outside providers to your medical appointment. Whether it is documentation from seeing a doctor outside of the typical healthcare system you go to, or if you’ve gone to the emergency room or urgent care services. Even if you went to the emergency room or urgent care for treatment of something unrelated to your diagnosed medical conditions, it’s always a good practice to let your medical providers know. Even if you went to the emergency room, let’s say for a pneumonia, and may not seem imperative to bring those medical documents to your appointment. However, many medical conditions increase risk of developing a severe case of a communicable illness, which delays your recovery time. This is good information to share with your medical provider


5. if you can’t bring someone with you to your medical appointment, and you can tend with brain fog, like I do, There are different apps you can use that can record what is discussed at your appointment


6. if for some reason you go to your medical appointment and there was an issue, you forgot to address, many medical systems have electronic medical charts or apps, that you can sign up an access to send messages to your treatment team. This is a good tool to use if you forgot to address something in your appointment. It’s also a great way to prepare for an appointment if you have medical document or images that you can download and send to your treatment team for them to have an ahead of time of your appointment.


Hope these tips help!