Heart Disease: Communicating with Several Providers

If you are like most people with heart disease, you have several healthcare providers who each treat you for a different health issue.

When a team of healthcare providers cares for you, it's important to keep each one up-to-date on your overall health. Doing so helps them understand the big picture of your treatment. This helps to prevent medicine interactions.

Keep the following tips in mind.

Share the names

Tell your healthcare providers the names and specialties of all your other healthcare providers. Your health problems may not seem related, but health conditions can affect each other. Tell your providers about other medical appointments and what your treatment plans involve. Include any changes in medicines or doses prescribed. Or if you have side effects. Ask each provider to send a copy of each visit note to your other providers. Most provider offices can easily do this on the same day. Many providers use electronic medical records. These can be looked at by other providers using the same program.

Share your list of medicines

A wallet card is handy for listing all of your medicines. The card includes how much you take of each and other instructions. Some pharmacies and healthcare systems have electronic medicine tracking that you can do from a tablet or smart phone. Ask your healthcare providers to review your list at each visit. Whenever you start taking a new medicine, tell the provider the names of all other medicines you take. Include over-the-counter products and herbal supplements. Your pharmacist is also an important resource. It's best to use one pharmacy so that the pharmacist can alert you to possible medicine interactions. It's important to keep track of your most current list of medicines.

Keep yourself informed

Learn about your health issues and the medicines you take. Ask your healthcare providers where you can find reliable information about your condition. Ask your healthcare providers for copies of letters they write to other providers about your care. You may have access to your own records through a secured internet connection (generally called a patient portal). It will be protected with a login and password given to you by your provider or insurance company. Ask if this is available to you.