This advice is from a family practice doctor, who went from a private practice to a group practice, moving up to over 1000 patients from a few hundred, it does make a difference, as she states even Marcus Welby only had a couple hundred or so patients to keep track of, and we all know the days of Marcus Welby are gone for the most part. 

Yes, doctors like the rest of us today are dealing with "information overload", but they are the ones who we rely on.  It's a good idea to have your records or at least part of them to verify there are no errors as well.  This physician has written up a very good argument for getting involved with your own healthcare. 

Need a place to get started, try Google Health or the Microsoft Health Vault which are personal health records designed to help you store some of this information and there are links on this site to both. BD  image

Did you know that 80 percent of what a doctor relies  on to make an accurate diagnosis and recommend the right treatment plan comes from the information in your medical records?

As a family doctor, I learned firsthand the importance of my patients taking an active role in their health care and keeping copies of their health information. Many of my patients had complex problems requiring multiple doctors. Some of them were spending winters in the Sunbelt, which meant they saw a different doctor for half the year. A lot of them were seeing complementary care practitioners and using complementary therapies. New patients often came for an initial office visit with no paperwork at all. I had no concrete data to go on -- no consultation reports from doctors, no X-ray reports, no test results, no list of medications or immunizations, no history of allergic reactions, no hospital discharge summaries.

The fact that doctors are dealing with information overload is only part of the reason you need to take charge of your health information.

ABC News: Healthy Dose: How Medical Records Can Save Your Life

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