Here’s a situation that comes up for many people: you move in later life.
Or maybe it’s your older mother — or father, or other older relative — who’s moving to a new town, perhaps to be closer to you, or otherwise be somewhere more conducive to aging in place.
Such a move means that you’ll need to establish care with a new primary care provider.
For most older adults, establishing a good working relationship with a new health provider is a challenge. If nothing else, it can take some time to feel that each party knows and understands the other.
But it’s also in many cases a terrific opportunity to review a person’s health and healthcare. Provided, of course, that everyone involved makes an effort, and has good information to work with.
In this post, I’ll share my list of the most useful medical records and health information that you should bring to that first visit with the new primary care provider.
Do you have to bring this information? Of course not. In my own experience, most people bring nothing more than a medication list, if that. And they leave it to the new doctors to request health information from the previous doctors, which often arrives well after that first new patient visit.
But this is a problem, because it makes it quite difficult for that first visit to be truly useful.
Sure, the doctor can interview you, and do a physical exam. Yet for many older adults, that interview and exam is often much more productive if a doctor can combine it with a review of the most useful health information.
I myself used to see a fair number of new older patients, when I was a primary care geriatrician at the Over 60 Health Center. Those first visits often felt like fumbling around in a dark room, feeling the walls and furniture and trying to get a sense of the overall layout.
But occasionally, a new patient would come with useful health information in hand. This generally made a big difference in how quickly we could ensure that our new patient was getting the right medical care from us, and from other involved doctors.
So if you want to have the best start possible with a new doctor — or help your aging parent do so — you’ll need to do a little advance preparation. This often requires some time and energy. But it will pay off, by ensuring that the new doctor has the information he or she needs, to provide you with good healthcare.
Also, if you are in that season of life where you’re starting to be more involved with your aging parent’s health (or think perhaps you should be), this is a great opportunity to learn more about your parent’s health.
Here’s my list of what I ask patients and families to bring to me, in order to make that new patient visit most useful.
This list is especially suited to the primary care of aging adults with chronic medical problems. But most of this information can come in handy for first visits with specialists. It can also be very useful to clinicians in the emergency room, or at urgent care.
Note: If you or your loved one have been maintaining a personal health record, this is the type of information that I hope you’ve been keeping in your personal health record!
This would include any conditions that you currently see a doctor for, or is being monitored. Bonus points if you include the year the condition was first diagnosed, or any other major milestones related to the disease. You can also include major past problems which are no longer being actively treated.
Now, electronic medical records and patient portals often generate a list of conditions automatically. But these tend to be long, unwieldy, and cluttered with diagnoses that may or may not be still relevant. So be sure to keep a list based on what your previous PCP had been focused on.
Be sure to list all prescribed medications, along with any over-the-counter medications and dietary supplements. Also helpful:
Most commonly these are results from blood tests and urine tests. Any lab results from the past 1-2 years will be helpful. You can learn about the tests that are ordered often in older adults here: Understanding Laboratory Tests: 10 Commonly Used Blood Tests for Older Adults.
This includes x-ray reports, ultrasound reports, CT scans, MRIs, etc. Radiology medical records from the last 1-5 years are especially useful.
These might include pulmonary function tests, EKGs, cardiac catheterization reports, biopsy results, neuropsychology evaluations, and so forth. It’s especially useful to have medical reports that are related to the diagnosis or management of a current chronic condition.
Try to get a copy of the narrative reports that clinicians create when a person comes the emergency room, or is hospitalized. These medical records are the reports that are written by health providers, for other health providers. Note: these are not same reports as the patient discharge instructions that are always handed out.
You may have to file a medical records request to obtain the medical records that are most useful. You do have a right to obtain your own records upon written request, or your power of attorney for healthcare can do so, as I explain in this article about HIPAA. However, some agreeable clinicians will just print them out in the office for you, if they have online access to them.
Specific examples of useful reports include:
List the doctors and healthcare providers who were previously involved in your loved one’s care. I often learn about important problems by finding out just why a person was seeing a given specialist.
For each specialist, it’s helpful to know when you established care, and how often you’d been seeing each provider. Your list might include:
Visit notes written by the primary care doctor, and the medical specialists, can be useful. At a minimum, try to get a copy of the last note.
I recommend starting by requesting notes from the last 3 visits, or the last year. If it’s easy to get more notes from each provider, you can do so as well.
If your previous doctors had a patient portal, check to see if the complete visit notes are available there, as some major health systems have begun making clinical visit notes available in this way.
Again, HIPAA gives patients (and their legally designated surrogates) the right to obtain their medical records upon request.
Have you or your loved one been getting help from a care manager? In-home aides? A patient navigator? A good primary care provider should be interested in knowing who has been involved, and what kind of help they’ve been providing. (Learn more about eldercare options here: Providing Elder Care: Covering the Cost of Home Care, Assisted Living & Other Options.)
These include any durable power of attorney documents, advance directives, living wills, pre-hospital DNRs, and/or POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) forms.
Long list, eh? Well, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that so far, I’ve had very few patients arrive with most of this information.
But this is the medical information that we doctors should know, in order to provide you or your aging parent with good care.
The ideal process, of course, is to collect medical information into some kind of personal health record system as you go along, so that you have all the information handy if you ever need to switch doctors. If you currently have a patient portal, that’s great but usually it only holds information from one particular practice, and you might lose access if you leave the practice. For this reason, it’s good to keep your own copy of your medical records, separate from the online patient portals.
So for instance, every time you or your loved one gets a blood draw, you would ask to get a copy of the results (or download them from your patient portal), and then you would file these results in your paper or digital personal health record. (For more on how to maintain a personal health record, see this post.)
But if you haven’t been maintaining a personal health record, a switch to a new primary care provider is the perfect time to start one.
So if you have the time, energy, and interest in being proactive, gather up these medical records and bring them to that new patient visit. Your new provider will thank you, and you or your older loved one should be able to get better healthcare.
This article was reviewed and updated by Dr. Kernisan in January 2024.
I have always tried to carry an “emergency” list (as wide as a credit card, then accordion-pleated to fit in a credit card window ) in my wallet and another copy on my cell phone home screen. Now I shall update this with a few more things you have suggested.
Thank you for this and all the other information you share with us. Keep up the good work!
Good idea to keep that list where it can easily be found in an emergency! And really smart to copy it to your phone. I’m so glad you found the article helpful, and thank you so much for the encouragement!
Thanks for your list. My doctor, who I consider a friend, has retired only to be replaced by a nurse practitioner. I think having to wait for an insurance company to approve a necessary MRI might have been one of the last straws. While nurse practitioners may be OK with most challenges, I have several rare and complicated conditions. So I left Medicare Advantage and went back to regular Medicare with a Medi-Gap plan and a separate insurance for medications. Then I got the list from Medicare of doctors who accept Medicare. It’s a daunting project, best handled with a cup of caffeine and in chunks. Most of the online information is not accurate. I am lucky that I live in one of the few states in the US that protects older consumers and allows you to switch back from an Advantage plan back to Medicare. Maine does not allow insurance companies to refuse to take you on if you have conditions they don’t like. Lots of people have been suckered into Advantage plans and are now stuck with them and their high deductibles.
Good for you for navigating all of this and thank you for sharing your experience. I’m happy to hear that you found a solution that works for you. Good luck with your MRI.
Since the doctor owns the medical records, the doctor should be responsible for relaying patient health risks to a new provider. PARTICULARLY, ANY lab results that are out of range. Otherwise, the first visit is a waste of time. And doctors won’t prescribe bloodwork ahead of that first visit. What happens when out of range blood tests are not explained to the patient AND not properly forwarded? Disaster.
You make a great point of the risks of communication gaps in health care. Many labs and doctor’s offices have patient portals, so that a patient can view and download things like lab results. This can allow a patient to track and share lab values along with their provider, reducing the risk of an abnormal value being missed.
I must disagree with the very first premise of this reply. The fact that the doctor’s practice may hold/store/maintain YOUR records is a convenience for which you may be charged. However, YOU – NOT your doctor – “own” the diagnoses and results of your medical visits and tests. What you are paying for is their expertise, care, and treatment. If you wish to move or have them transferred to another provider THEN you may be charged for this service as well.
I hadn’t really thought about a patient “owning” a diagnosis. The medical record is the document of which the physician is typically the custodian. The content includes personal health information, covered by HIPAA. Most physicians or healthcare organizations do charge to have records released (either to the patient, or another provider).
Great info. I started an excel spreadsheet, decades ago, going back to having my tonsils out (which is now 7 pages long). I list all surgeries, post operative results, pathology reports, broken bones, vaccinations, emergency visits, ultra sounds, any CT/MRI results, heart test results, etc., etc. The info always includes the date, the location, Dr’s name & any results & recommendations. Plus, I have a separate sheet with all my medications listed. It HELPS!
Wow! That sounds like an impressive database. Very proactive and I’m sure it’ll lead to your providers having a full picture of your health. Thanks for sharing your experience!
You sound like a Dr. that takes time with her patients. Unfortunately, all but one of my Docs. takes time to look over the records you listed. They either show annoyance or indifference. They seem only interested in spending as little time as possible in order to get to the next patient. The on-line questionnaires that are provided, do nothing more than minimize the info. you can input. I feel like I’m on my own with whatever info. I can glean from the internet and sources such as yours. But thanks for Doctors like you.
I’m sorry to hear that you had that experience with sharing information with some of your providers. It sounds like you’re proactive and engaged in your health care – that’s a blessing for most doctors! It’s probably still a great idea to bring that info with you and offer ot leave a copy that they could scan into their file. Even if they don’t look at the info right away, it will be there when they need it.
Excellent 10 point list Dr. Kernisan. As a physical therapist, I always have asked my patients for any pertinent past records for effective follow up in designing their future treatment program. It only makes good sense in comprehensive patient care. Thanks again for a great topic of interest.
I agree! I’m always happy when a new patient comes in with a folder with their past health information. Makes it so much easier to help when I have complete information.
I have a appointment with a new family physician in the upcoming months. A request of me for first appointment was to bring a list of two doctors I have had as my PCP in the last two years. I have chosen, for copious reasons, to see a large number of doctors due to: lack of professional manners (in my opinion), lack of proper care, rudeness, lack of notable interest in my questions, etc. The last physician I stayed with – for eight months. Preceding her, I was with my doctor for over two years. My question is: why would the newest physician ask for the names of my TWO previous physicians if in the last two years. Is it within her right to ask for records of both physicians? I have not had this request from any other doctor I’ve seen. Thank you.
Hi Timothy. I’m not a primary care physician (I work as a Geriatrician in Ontario, Canada, where most Geriatricians are consultants who work with the family physician in a shared model), so it’s possible that there is something about primary care practice that I don’t understand that would make it important to know the previous doctors. As Dr. Kernisan states in the article, it can be very helpful to know which other professionals have been involved in a patient’s care. For example, if I am seeing someone for chronic pain and they have already been seen in a specialized pain clinic, that might change my approach to the issue. I can think of a few other reasons why the new doctor might want this information, but it would just be speculation. I am not sure that a physician could demand such information from a new patient, but in the interest of building a trusting relationship with a new care provider, a first step might be to ask the reception team or the office manager why that information is required.
Dear Doctors:
It’s truly lovely to see such an attentive medical staff.
I would not dream of receiving such a response, but it’s nice to see others reacted to.
Thanks for these really informative tips for establishing a working relationship with a new doctor! I especially liked how you explained that it is still imp=ortant to include major past problems that aren’t being treated anymore. My aunt recently moved to a new state following her divorce, and she has had a long bout with breast cancer during her youth. I’ll be sure to share this article with her so she can be better prepared when meeting with her new physician.
Thanks for pointing out that you should bring a list of the medications you take when you go to a new primary care doctor. My husband and I just moved to a new home, so I’m currently looking for a primary care doctor in the area. I take a lot of medications and don’t think I could list them all from memory, so thanks for reminding me that I should take a list to my first visit!
