The Happy Times in Healthcare Podcast is here to help healthcare consumers become better educated in order to receive the best possible healthcare available to them. This podcast series covers a wide variety of topics including paying for healthcare - when you are insured and when you are not insured, selecting a new physician, using healthcare quality rating tools, and understanding your medical record. In this episode:

Podcast: KDKA Interview Part 3 - Dr. Ruthann Russo joins John Steigerwald on KDKA News Radio 1020 to discuss how to take control of your healthcare in 7 steps.

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The first thing I learned as a student in medical terminology is that the suffix otomy means “incision.” With that one piece of information, I felt empowered. Knowing that any term with the suffix otomy meant that the body part would have an incision made into it gave me instant understanding of a plethora of medical terms. For example, a gastrotomy means “incision into the stomach (or gastric region).”

The more I learned, the more empowered I felt. That same day, I also learned two other suffixes: algia, which means “pain,” and itis, which means “inflammation of.” I now knew that the term neuralgia means “pain from the nerves or caused by a nerve.” And I now knew that arthritis means “inflammation of the joint” (arth being a prefix meaning “joint”). Once you learn the basic rules of the language, root words, prefixes, and suffixes, the process of learning a language is much easier.

This video produced by AHIMA provides a good overview of your health information and personal health records.

Dr. Ruthann Russo discusses 10 things you should know about your medical record as a critical part of your healthcare and planning.

The Happy Times in Healthcare Podcast is here to help healthcare consumers become better educated in order to receive the best possible healthcare available to them. This podcast series covers a wide variety of topics including paying for healthcare - when you are insured and when you are not insured, selecting a new physician, using healthcare quality rating tools, and understanding your medical record. In this episode:

Podcast: 10 things you should know about your medical record - Dr. Ruthann Russo discusses 10 things you should know about your medical record as a critical part of your healthcare and planning.

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You may feel healthcare providers use medical terminology to put a barrier between you and them. Healthcare providers use medical terminology to be more efficient. Saving 30 seconds by using medical shorthand might make a difference between life and death in an emergency.

A good example is the term bacterial gastroenteritis. This term means “inflammation of the stomach and the intestines due to a bacterial infection.” Using two words versus 12 words is significant. String several terms together and you could save a minute or more. In the ER a physician could save a life in this amount of time.

Question: How to check your bill for errors at hospitals?
From: Bonnie B.

Answer: It is always wise to review your hospital bill. Although hospitals may do a “self audit” to check that services ordered were rendered and charged to the appropriate billing codes, errors do happen. If you or a family member feel you or your insurance company are being charged incorrectly, contact the hospital’s Patient Accounts Department. Insurance companies will also scrutinize the bill and may request a copy of the medical record to review for medical necessity and appropriate charges. Hospitals are wary of fraudulent behavior but you are also responsible. In some instances, incorrect information may have been given at registration so you should also make sure that insurance information is correct.

Perhaps the thought of reading the details of your hysterectomy, prostatectomy, or open-heart surgery is not appealing. This is understandable. Here is an opportunity to define how extensively you want to interact with your records.

Previously I discussed the benefits of obtaining and maintaining all of your medical records in one location for continuity of your care. However, obtaining your records and reading them are two very different things. You can obtain your records and never read them, leaving that to the clinicians. Or you can read every page of every record, line by line. The best approach for most patients is probably somewhere in the middle.

Remember this caveat: reviewing a medical record for a novice may be daunting. As you review your record, it is important not to jump to conclusions based on discrete pieces of data. If you do have questions or concerns, you need to ask your physician to provide his or her interpretation of all the information. Start out your review by using my suggested approach and, as you become more familiar with your records, delve into different parts in more detail.

“The ultimate goal of this patient-centered and controlled model is to give patients the ability to interact with multiple physicians, healthcare service providers and pharmacies.”

As I discuss in my new book, one of the best ways to get your best possible healthcare is to take control of your personal information and ensure that every provider has a complete picture of your overall health.  Many people have raised concerns over privacy, security and HIPAA issues from Google branching into healthcare.  However this recent development is a major step forward in broad reaching electronic access for patients to their medical records information.

Creating a personal medical record may sound like an unnecessary step to you. After all, your physician maintains records in his office and, if you’ve ever been hospitalized, the hospital has a record. But what if you have more than one doctor or have been in more than one hospital? Can you be sure that the doctor’s information is available to the hospital? Are you sure events that occurred in one hospital or facility are passed along to another? Do your children know all of your medical conditions? There are many “ifs” and chances to be taken.

Question: How long do they have to keep your medical records in the doctor’s
office?
From: Heidi E.

Answer: Most states require that providers, hospitals and physicians, keep medical records for 7 to 10 years, depending on the state. My own primary care physician retired several years ago and he had my records for the entire time I had gone to him-almost 30 years. Upon my request, he forwarded records to my new physician. I would suggest that you ask your physician how long he keeps records. As you can imagine, the record from a hospital visit will be much longer than a physician’s office visit and so storage has been a problem. As hospitals and even some physicians make the transition to electronic medical records, some of this will be alleviated. In January 2005, the Bush Administration called for the establishment of a national network of electronic health records within 10 years. There are certainly advantages in accessing records quickly in cases of disaster but confidentiality and security must also be protected.

The Happy Times in Healthcare Podcast is here to help healthcare consumers become better educated in order to receive the best possible healthcare available to them. This podcast series covers a wide variety of topics including paying for healthcare - when you are insured and when you are not insured, selecting a new physician , using healthcare quality rating tools, and understanding your medical record. In this episode:

Stories Behind the Steps Excerpt - Vera - In an excerpt from her upcoming release of The Stories Behind the Steps, Dr Russo is joined by Vera who shares her story of when she first learned of her breast cancer diagnosis and discusses the frustrations Vera has with the healthcare system for not detecting her cancer earlier and how the system can be improved.  For a free sample chapter of 7 Steps to Your Best Possible Healthcare or to purchase a copy of the book please visit http://www.7stepshealth.com.

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The mountain of documentation leading up to the passing of any federal law is evidence of the pain that many, many individuals and groups have endured to get to the final end. While books can be, and have been, written about what can go wrong with passing legislation in a democratic bi-partisan, interest group dominated society like America, much, much more good than bad comes out of this process. The common balance that we seek to achieve in a democracy is one that benefits both society as a whole and individual. This is not an easy feat and usually requires tireless hours of debate and re-framing until a solution is reached. Even then, we have protections against laws that may violate individual rights in the form of our executive branch (the President can veto a law) and the Supreme Court (which can overturn a law as unconstitutional). More importantly, we have the people who elect our legislators as a sounding board for the effectiveness of the laws that are going to be, or have been passed. Strong enough opposition from “we the people” can lead to amendments or even dissolution of laws.

Today’s version of Moore’s law, conceived in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, states that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits will double approximately every 18 months. The significance of Moore’s law is that we can expect technology to outpace itself every 18 months. Roughly every year and a half, we have seen, and will continue to see significant upgrades in technology. The relevance for HIPAA and health information security is that since HIPAA was passed 10 years ago, technology has advanced 15 fold. The security and privacy protections inherent in 10 year old technology are not the protections of today. And, for healthcare, this is even more relevant. While some may argue that computer upgrades in healthcare are much less common, in fact, most healthcare providers are constantly on top of new trends in technology. There are many reasons for this.

Obtaining your records on your own behalf is, ironically, only half of the story. You are not the only one with an interest in your health information. Others who have an interest in your information include doctors and hospitals who treat you....and that makes sense, right? Even your insurance company who pays your bills, they have a legitimate interest in seeing what they are paying for. But there are others, like companies who do business with hospitals, researchers, accounting or consulting firms, and data clearing houses (who house electronic data) who also have access to your health information. Under HIPAA, which is the law that governs the protection of medical records, these other organizations can obtain access to your information as “business associates” of the hospital or doctor. Under HIPAA, these business associates are still bound by the same protections as the hospital or doctor they received the information from. But, the bigger issue for most of us is that they have the information to begin with. We may have a greater comfort with some of these groups using our information than others, like medical researchers.

The job of protecting your medical records or health information should be of paramount importance to every healthcare provider, but what we find, in fact, is that there is an army of individuals, known as health information managers, who are primarily charged with this duty across the country.

The association that credentials health information professionals, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is 51,000 members strong. You can experience for yourself the zealousness and fortitude of these professionals when you request your medical records from a hospital. The health information management department, or the medical record department, of every acute care hospital is managed by staunch protectors of your health information. The first clue about how firm their grip on your information is will be the release of information (ROI) form that you must complete to obtain your own records. Proof of identification as well as a completed form, including why you want the information, is required in all cases. If someone else, like your spouse, child or parent is requesting the information on your behalf, then you will have to sign an ROI form for them to obtain the information for you.

The Happy Times in Healthcare Podcast is here to help healthcare consumers become better educated in order to receive the best possible healthcare available to them. This podcast series covers a wide variety of topics including paying for healthcare - when you are insured and when you are not insured, selecting a new physician , using healthcare quality rating tools, and understanding your medical record. In this episode:

Podcast: Health Talk Interview with Dr. Ronald Hoffman (Part 2) - Dr Ronald Hoffman of Health Talk and Ruthann Russo author of 7 Steps to Your Best Possible Healthcare discuss medical records and some of the issues a consumer should be aware of with the shift by many hospitals from paper based to electronic medical records. For a free sample chapter of 7 Steps to Your Best Possible Healthcare or to purchase a copy of the book please visit http://www.7stepshealth.com.

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As a recent guest on the Dr. Ronald Hoffman Health Talk radio show on WOR-710, Dr. Hoffman asked me about concerns around the electronic health record, or EHR. Dr. Hoffman recounted some of the stories regarding individual’s loss of privacy in their medical records because information was leaked onto the internet by a hospital or the physician’s office. My response was (and is) three fold:

An example of reasonable fees that you may have to pay to obtain a copy of your medical records was recently published by the State of Pennsylvania for 2008. Every state regulates their own charges. You can probably find the rates for your state by searching the state’s department of health website.

Using the table below, a 2-day hospital stay which is typically about 50 to 60 pages of information, could cost you up to $62.65. If you can not afford the medical record copying fees you have several options available to you.

Dr Russo and attorney Joseph Russo discuss how to get a copy of your medical record and why it is important for your overall health planning. They also share a recent experience that highlights some of the differences that you may encounter between various doctor offices.

The Happy Times in Healthcare Podcast is here to help healthcare consumers become better educated in order to receive the best possible healthcare available to them. This podcast series covers a wide variety of topics including paying for healthcare - when you are insured and when you are not insured, selecting a new physician , using healthcare quality rating tools, and understanding your medical record. In this episode:

Obtaining Your Medical Record - Dr Russo and attorney Joseph Russo discuss how to get a copy of your medical record and why it is important for your overall health planning. They also share a recent experience that highlights some of the differences that you may encounter between various doctor offices.

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Patients do own their health information, but it is a generally accepted understanding in the healthcare industry that the healthcare provider who collected the information owns the medium on which it is stored. This means, at least in the non-digital world, that the provider also owns the original copy of your health information.

I have released a new eDoc, The Health Information Profession, which provides the healthcare consumer with an introduction to the Health Information Management department, often referred to as the Medical Records department, how the department is operated, the resources available to patients and how you can use these resources in planning your healthcare.

This eDoc explores the following topics:
• The Role of the HIM professional in the hospital setting
• How the HIM professional can help the consumer with health planning
• The career outlook for becoming a HIM professional
• The education requirements for becoming an HIM professional

As a benefit for readers of this site you can enter the code ruthannrusso.com at checkout to save 10% on any order from djiberstore.com.

It is rare today to receive all of your healthcare needs from one healthcare provider in the same location. Many of us need to change doctors because we’re moving to another part of the country or because we have changed jobs and health plans. Often our health conditions necessitate being seen and treated by more than one physician. For example, an individual with diabetes and diabetes-related complications, such as diabetic renal failure and retinopathy will likely need three or four different physicians: a primary care physician to coordinate all care, an endocrinologist for the diabetes control, a nephrologist for the kidney failure and an ophthalmologist for the retinopathy.

Health Information Mangement(HIM) or Medical Record professionals provide many valuable services to the healthcare consumer they can do this by providing information to you, facilitating access to your records, and answering any questions you have about your health information. In addition, the HIM professional at your local hospital can recommend resources to help you wade through your health record. HIM professionals really are a wealth of information. In most cases, however, because of the way healthcare facilities are organized, you need to initiate the contact with the HIM professional. That’s why it is important for you to understand the HIM department and seek it out.

Individuals in the HIM department are trained to provide certain basic services for you and for your health information. The list below contains the typical, basic responsibilities of an HIM professional.

Typical responsibilities of the health information professional that involve or affect you:

Here are a few reasons you may want to obtain and maintain your own health information:,

1. To provide continuity of care

2. For your own reference

3. For future generations

4. To gain a greater understanding of the healthcare system

5. To increase efficiency and reliability of health information

6. To increase our own responsibility for our health

7. To increase the accountability of healthcare providers

If you are admitted to the hospital or if you have more than one physician caring for you, ever wonder how they all communicate about you? They use your medical record….each one in potentially a different manner….let’s take a look at some of the different doctors and clinicians who document in your record and read your record to make sure they know as much as possible about you and your conditions.

Dr Russo answers some of the most frequently asked questions regarding dealing with the release of medical record information. Such who is authorized to sign for medical record? How much does it cost to get a copy of my medical record? How long does the doctor keep copies of my records? Can my medical record be released without my authorization?

The Happy Times in Healthcare Podcast is here to help healthcare consumers become better educated in order to receive the best possible healthcare available to them. This new podcast series covers a wide variety of topics including paying for healthcare - when you are insured and when you are not insured, selecting a new physician , using healthcare quality rating tools, and understanding your medical record. In this episode:

FAQ's About the Release of Your Medical Record Information - Dr Russo answers some of the most frequently asked questions regarding dealing with the release of medical record information. Such who is authorized to sign for medical record? How much does it cost to get a copy of my medical record? How long does the doctor keep copies of my records? Can my medical record be released without my authorization?

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The Happy Times in Healthcare Podcast is here to help healthcare consumers become better educated in order to receive the best possible healthcare available to them. This new podcast series covers a wide variety of topics including paying for healthcare - when you are insured and when you are not insured, selecting a new physician , using healthcare quality rating tools, and understanding your medical record. In this episode: