Inside the American Medical System: Making a Medical Notebook II (Part 6 in the Series)

In my last post I wrote about the two major forms that I used to make up a medical notebook for our baby with special needs. In this post, I'll share some additional helpful minor forms that we used for our notebook!

Other Minor Forms:

Some other forms that I kept in my notebook included....

(1) Doctor Information Sheets

I often found that I needed to give contact information for all of our various doctors. Thus, I kept one sheet per doctor, listing that doctor's name, location, and all contact information - and sometimes driving directions to their offices! I also added any additional details (parking fees, etc.) that I needed to remember for myself or other caregivers. Here is one example (identifying details removed):

Neurologist Dr. ------- ----------  1919 E Thomas Rd Phoenix Children's Hospital Bldg. B Phoenix, AZ 85016 Phone: (602) 222-2222 Fax: (602) 222-2222 Email: doctorx@doctorx.com Driving Directions: From the 60 fwy....

(2) Pharmacy Information:

Doctors often needed contact information for our pharmacy in case they needed to call in information. It was incredibly helpful to have our pharmacy information on one sheet so that they could just make a quick copy and stick it in our file.

Pharmacy for [Patient Name] Walgreen’s 123 Main St.  Anytown, AZ 55555 Phone: 480-222-2222 Fax: 480-222-2222

(3) Basic Client Birth Information:

In evaluating a baby with special needs, one area that was always asked about was birth information. Was he term? Birth complications? Apgars? I made a sheet for birth information and had it ready to hand over.

[Patient Name] Born: September 1, 2009 Due date: Sept. 3 or 5, 2009 Pregnancy Length: 39w, 3-5 days Labor Length: 7h 11m Birth location: Home Attendants: [Names of attending midwives] Birth Weight: 7#15.5 Birth Length: 21” Birth Head Circumference: Apgars:

(4) Parent Information:

In filling out office forms (especially for insurance purposes), offices often requested personal information for DH or myself - information I didn't know by memory. I made one of the following forms for each of us so that I could have this information available at all times:

[Parent Name] Work fax: 480-222-2222 Work phone: 480-222-2222 Work address: Company Name 123 Main Street Anytown, AZ 55555 Driver’s License: Exp. Date:  SSN:

These forms, plus a couple that I've probably forgotten, formed the basis for our medical notebook, which was a real life-saver! In the next section I'll share a basic outline of what our medical notebook looked like in order to give you some ideas for your own!

Click on Part 7 to keep reading!