My wife has a doctor’s appointment today. About 2 weeks ago, she received a letter in the mail from the doctor’s office asking her to fill out a web form with information. It seems that the doctor’s office has jumped on the web bandwagon and are having all of their patients create a digital web-based chart. So what’s the problem with this?
The web form was multiple pages (upwards of 50) and took at least 45 mins to complete. The questions asked were of her entire health history, not just what has happened since her last appointment. My wife said over and over how they already had all this information in her (paper) chart at the office. Since she used to work in that office, she knows exactly what is contained in her chart. The endless duplication grated on her endlessly. And my wife does not get upset very easily. The worst part is that even after she completed this monstrosity, she still got a phone call from the office asking her to please complete the process before her appointment.
I don’t have a problem with the doctor’s office going digital. But they went about it the wrong way. So what is the right way?
Her appointment was made months ago. When her appointment was made, the office should have had someone upload all the information from her paper chart to the digital storage. Then, she should have gotten a letter that asked her to answer the questions based on health changes from her last appointment. What took 45mins as it is would have only taken about 10 mins.
Sure, this would have cost the doctor’s office $ for labor. Maybe they would have had to hire a couple medical transcriptionists to do the work. But since it was a decision of the practice it digitize their charts, they should eat the cost of this, rather than pushing the pain onto their patients.
