Appointments
What to bring to a nephrology appointment
A short packing list that makes a fifteen-minute visit go further.
Most of what makes an appointment productive is decided before you walk in. Here is a packing list that fits in one folder or one phone.
The packing list
- Your current medicine and supplement list, including doses and anything you stopped
- Recent results or letters from other clinicians, as files rather than summaries
- Any logs your care team specifically asked you to keep
- Your top three questions, written down and ranked
- A note of anything that has changed since the last visit, including appetite and sleep
- Pharmacy details and, if relevant, insurance or coverage information
Rank your questions before you go
If you only get to ask one thing, which one is it? Writing the ranking down prevents the most important question from being the one you remember in the car park.
Capture the answers before you leave the building
Two minutes in the waiting room writing down what was said is worth more than an hour of reconstruction later. If you are attending with someone, agree in advance who is writing.
Sources
- Managing Chronic Kidney Disease. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Reviewed October 2016; pair with current clinical review before publication.
Author status
Editorial draft
Reviewer status
Clinical review pending
- Editorial status
- Editorial draft — not published
- Review status
- Clinical review pending
- Something wrong?
- Request a correction
Keep reading
Records
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A filing system that makes documents easy to find and leaves the reading to your clinicians.
Editorial draft6 min readQualified review pending
Records
How to keep an up-to-date medication and supplement list
The single most useful document to have current, and the easiest one to let drift.
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Caregiving
A caregiver's appointment checklist
How to be useful in the room without taking over the conversation.
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