1. Cut Spending on Prescription Drugs
A participant in a Medical Bridges "Medication Makeover" teleseminar was on six prescription medications. He made the recommended appointment with his doctor to review his medication list. As a result he cut his medication list—and his medication spending—by a third.
2. Avoid Unnecessary Medical Tests
A Medical Bridges newsletter reader followed through on the recommendation to collect her medical records and bring them with her to an appointment with the medical specialist. Because she brought her medical records collected and organized in the Medical Bridges Personal Health Journal, the specialist saw that the test she was about to order had already been performed, though identified with a different name. The availability of the medical records averted the cost and risk of repeated testing.
3. Avoid Unnecessary Surgical Procedures
An audience member recently diagnosed with cancer heard Dr. Rackner emphasize the importance of second medical opinions on the pathology slides and x-rays as well as the surgical plan. Because she brought her pathology slides to the second opinion doctor instead of the pathology report, she discovered she did not have cancer after all. She avoided an unnecessary operation.
4. Increase Productivity at Work
An employee spent hours of his work week speaking with his sick mother's five doctors who each seemed unaware of the plans of the others. He read an article in the company newsletter written by Dr. Rackner about the importance of a "quarterback doctor" who coordinates the health care team. He and his mother asked the doctor with the best communication skills to take on this role. She agreed, even though she was not the patient's primary care doctor. The employee only had to call one doctor instead of five to advocate for his mother's medical needs, dramatically enhancing both his hours of productivity and his work focus.
5. Ask the Right Questions
An executive was frustrated by the many attempts to identify the nature of her mystery illness. Through the participation of our executive health coaching, she and Dr. Rackner crafted the right questions, identified the right doctor to whom the question were posed and stated her desired medical outcome. This ultimately lead to the diagnosis, appropriate treatment and a dramatically enhanced quality of life.
6. Find the Right Doctor
A mother did careful research before choosing a pediatrician. While she was confident in the doctor's skill and judgment, they never clicked. After hearing Dr. Rackner on the radio describe the importance of choosing the right doctor partner for a healthy medical marriage, she switched to another pediatrician in the same group and she's delighted with the care she and her daughter are getting.
7. Move Forward in the Face of Fear
An audience member said that she was skeptical about Dr. Rackner's assertion that childhood medical experiences shape health related choices. She told her husband who confessed that the real reason he put off the knee operation that would let him get back on the tennis court was a fear of being choked by the breathing tube, only to discover that the operation was done with regional anesthetic –and no feared tube.
8. Get the Desired Medical Outcome
A newsletter reader wrote a note to Dr. Rackner with a story that underscored the importance of her suggestion to focus on the desired medical outcome. After trying many different medications that were unsuccessful in putting an end to his chromic cough, the doctor said he would just have to learn to live with the symptoms. His doctor was on vacation when he went in for flu symptoms, and the covering doctor suggested a new medication for the cough. It was gone within a week.
9. Let your intuition guide you to the diagnosis
A 22-year-old woman was glad she took Dr. Rackner's advice to listen to her intuition. She was very concerned when she found a new breast mass. The doctor told her that she was too young to have breast cancer, and too young to get the mammogram she requested. She just assumed that since he was the doctor he knew more than she did, although her nagging concern persisted. After hearing Dr. Rackner she went to see another doctor, and the mammogram showed that she did, in fact, have breast cancer.
10. Avoid Being a Victim of Medical Errors
A man suggested Dr. Rackner's little piece of her advice may have saved his mother's life. He followed through on the suggestion to ask the nurse what medication she was offering to his hospitalized mother and what it was for. He questioned a medication that treated symptoms his mother did not have. Sure enough, the pharmacy sent the wrong medicine.
11. Freedom from worry and fear.
A coaching client was concerned that he had cancer. The doctor made a diagnosis, and never mentioned the possibility of the feared cancer. Dr. Rackner's advice to ask the doctor the direct question about whether this could be cancer helped him sleep better
12. Know that no news might not be good news
A woman heard Dr. Rackner on the radio suggest that the "no news is good news" method of getting medical test results was risky. As a result this listener called her doctor to get the results of her urine test, and it was not normal as she assumed. The specimen had never been sent to the lab.
13. Get your results your way
One of Dr. Rackner's newsletter readers was empowered with the understanding that he could ask the doctor to give him the test results over the phone instead of in person. That gave him time to do some research so he could ask good questions.
