A handful of people
braved the snow to participate in Puja Thomson’s practical workshop, Get
Organized! How to Keep Track of Your
Medical Paperwork at The Desmond Campus, Newburgh on November 27th, 2012.
Each class member brought an empty three-ring
binder and filled it with material Puja Thomson provided: such as a copy of the already 3 hole-punched 87 page My Hope & Focus Organizer, extra dividers,
named tabs, sheet protectors, and a business card holder sheet. Puja Thomson introduced guidelines
and helpful hints to show the class how to divide the paperwork for each aspect
of their health journey. This way they would have everything—their emergency
contact information, professional team, medical history, questions for doctors
and their answers, test/lab results, prescriptions, billing, insurance, family
involvement, and other useful information—all at their fingertips!
Next, everyone got involved adding personal
information to specific pages, such as emergency contacts, and began to work on
their health history log, confident that they could complete the entries at
home after the class.
Puja encouraged everyone
to:
· Use only the pages that are relevant at any given time
and come back to other details as needed later. Take breaks!
· Change to a much bigger binder, or subdivide the
information between several binders, as your info accumulates—so that, e.g, everything concerning medical visits is
in one binder, while insurance and billing is in another. Place Resource
information in folders in a file box on a shelf
· Get help!
· Put
in place your health care Proxy and Living will immediately, even BEFORE
illness knocks at your door, if you haven’t done so yet. (A good resource is Five Wishes from www.agingwithdignity.org/)
· Remember! What
matters is that YOU can find everything without fuss or stress.
It was well worth braving
the elements! As one participant put it, “This
course absolutely met my expectations. It was well-organized and informative.
Having had a recent hospitalization and long illness, the paperwork has been
overwhelming. Puja’s wonderful “My Hope & Focus Organizer”, the extra
dividers, tabs and pages she provided along with her very clear guidelines were
very helpful. I wish I had this information 8 months ago… I will use it and
pass it on...” Another found
the organization ideas “original,
detailed and useful.” And another shared that the “Questions to ask your doctor” were particularly valuable.
Written by Cynthia Stewart for Roots & Wings
Written by Cynthia Stewart for Roots & Wings