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024: Administering to your health
600 Plays5 years ago
Get your regular health checks on track and your health records sorted so you can find them when you need them.
This episode provides some practical tips to save you time and give you peace of mind when it comes to:
- Booking health appointments
- Getting health checks sorted for your age and stage
- Filing health records – what to store and how you should store them.
Mia and Dinah talk about:
- The Australian My Health Record and what you can use it for
- Using your cloud storage to store your health records
- The value of finding a great GP, dentist and pharmacy
- Getting your children comfortable with communicating with health professionals
- Being aware of what health checks you should have based on your stage of life
- Hacks for making appointments and minimising wait times
- Helpful phone numbers to keep in your phone.
LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK
- Mia talks about updating the contact information for her children’s extra-curricular activities to her shared email address so her partner can have greater transparency and share the job of making payments.
LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK
- Dinah talks about the pain caused by using her work card incorrectly to pay for her Uber Eats.
POWER TOOL
Find penguins app – travel journal app that can help you make a photobook on the go
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Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.
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Transcript
Energy Saving Tips by Georgia Power
00:00:00
Speaker
Sometimes we forget how easy it is to save energy at home. So Georgia Power is here with a little reminder because it's often as simple as a twist to switch to LED bulbs or as easy as a lift to move furniture away from air vents. It could be the flip of a switch to turn off the lights in an empty room. One way or another, these small changes can make a big difference.
00:00:21
Speaker
Helping you save energy for the bigger things in life. Visit georgapower.com slash energy efficiency for tips and programs to help save energy and money.
Introduction to Life Admin Podcast
00:00:30
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips, and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money, and improve your household harmony. I'm Donna Roe Roberts, an operations manager who's worked for many years in the health system and knows how low-tech enabled it is.
00:00:51
Speaker
I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher and writer, and my recent work projects have revealed that the health industry is one of the hardest to be impacted by digitalisation and emerging technologies. This app will help you get your regular health checks on track and keep your health records together so you can find them when you need them. Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks.
00:01:13
Speaker
In this episode, we'll be talking about the best way to optimize booking health appointments and scheduling health screenings, the various health screens for your age and stage, and what health records you should be storing and how we think you should store them.
00:01:28
Speaker
So we're going to cover off basic medical, dental, optometrist kinds of screenings and health checks and records and recognize that you might have some allied health needs too with physio and chiro. And we did talk about what this might look like for people who are managing chronic illnesses or conditions or managing the health records of other people in their family, perhaps parents or children.
Managing Health Records and My Health Record System
00:01:53
Speaker
And I guess we want to have a caveat that
00:01:57
Speaker
Based on your situation and what kinds of records you need to keep, based on the advice you've been given from health professionals, obviously listen to them. Definitely. We definitely don't want to take the role of medical practitioner, but there does seem to be lots of paperwork involved when it comes to the healthcare system, that's for sure.
00:02:18
Speaker
Absolutely and chatting to people you know we realize that within families or even within individuals people have multiple general practitioners they might be going to they've probably got some records on paper they've got some records that are digital that might be emailed to them or they're downloading from some system and generally people have stuff all over the shop. Yeah and it's really important to take an active role in your health probably not where you should have a set and forget attitude.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's probably best to invest in time thinking about how you're going to approach these things more methodically for you and your family. So the hacks that we're going to talk about today are really about saving time and giving you peace of mind so that you know that you're accessing health providers and a frequency that makes sense for your age and stage or for your family's ages and stages, and that you have access to the information when you need it.
00:03:10
Speaker
Well, I'm sure everyone here in Australia has heard about the My Health Record. You know, the intention behind it is that your health information can be viewed securely online, from anywhere, at any time, even if you move overseas or you travel interstate. But obviously it's not that simple, is it, Mia?
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, and for listeners elsewhere, my health record was an Australian government initiative to get everybody to opt in to having health providers send their medical records to this one area so that it could be shared between or among health providers and obviously easily accessed. It hasn't had the take up that the government would have desired by either the health providers or people.
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, so originally the health record was an opt-in arrangement, so you actually had to actively opt-in. But when no one was opting in, the government changed the legislation to make it an opt-out. So actually most Australians now do have a health record. I think it's over 90% of Australians actually have a health record. And there are some really good things about it because you can actually control your record. So if you're, you can actually log into your health record
00:04:27
Speaker
and you can decide which parts of information you want to share with which health providers, and you can add your own information and change your privacy settings. And it was even designed so that other apps could connect to it so that you could add other information. But there's been some big issues with it, really, Mia, hasn't there? Yeah, it had a lot of media attention. A lot of people in the tech community were worried about privacy and the way that the thing was built. A lot of people in the health
00:04:56
Speaker
industry were worried about the level of training and the competency of medical professionals to be able to use the system and upload documents. People were worried about privacy. So did you opt out and you opted in? What's your status? So I think I was probably one of the first few Australians to opt in. So I opted in when it first started because I was really intrigued and I guess a bit excited of the idea that
00:05:20
Speaker
Someone could put all my health information somewhere. I wouldn't have to do the work to keep it together. But the reality is it's still not useful many years down the track. And it's not because of the privacy issues. It's because the doctors aren't using it. And when doctors aren't adding information to it, it's not a single health record.
00:05:39
Speaker
It's only got really some transactional information in there and it has information if you have been to hospital because hospitals are required to put discharge summaries in there. And there is supposed to be information in respect to pathology and imaging.
00:05:55
Speaker
But really, unless it has everything, it makes it less than useful in terms of a one-stop shop for your health information. Yeah. I had originally opted in and then when the media furor happened and I chatted to some friends who were medicals, I opted out and I've been in there and I have set up various passwords so that different people can have access and I really don't know what it's collecting, what it has.
The Importance of Personal Health Record Keeping
00:06:20
Speaker
I don't use it. No medical professional I've ever seen has ever talked about it.
00:06:24
Speaker
so it's been up to me to keep what documents I think are useful. And that's what we're going to talk about today because I think some people, even if they have opted into my health record, it's still not comprehensive and you still need to be recording some of this documentation yourself. And we had a bit of a chat to a GP friend of ours as we were researching this episode and she told us, you know, what we'd suspected is that most doctors, they're their own little small business
00:06:51
Speaker
and they haven't invested the necessary time and energy into the technology to link into the My Health record. So certainly in the short term, it doesn't look like things are going to change.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yes. And contrary to what you might expect, it's actually more important to keep records if you're a rare visitor to the doctor rather than living with a chronic condition where someone is probably having a more active management of your health. Because if you go to the doctor, you get some results and it's heading in a certain direction, there are no previous records to show whether this is a anomaly or a pattern or a slow or a sudden change. If you go to the same doctor and they use the same pathology clinic
00:07:31
Speaker
to do the results, they might be able to get results from previous years. But if you go to multiple GPs or you've been getting blood tests from multiple pathology clinics, you're not going to have the full picture. Which is not what I have thought. I had assumed that because I go to the doctor very rarely, I get a blood test. I thought, this is a single point of time. This can't be useful in 12 months. And I just get rid of all that. I didn't cut anything.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah. So I think that really what we've learned researching this episode is it is actually useful to keep those information. Um, so to, to save it to whatever cloud storage system you're using. And obviously for both yourself and particularly for your children, so that your other partners can easily access that same information. Should they be taking your kids to the doctor as well? Yeah. So what you should be hanging onto.
00:08:21
Speaker
If you have any kind of maternal health book for your kids that has information about their checkups or immunizations, you should hang on to that. Any results from blood tests, urine tests, pathology results from biopsies, hang on to all of those.
00:08:36
Speaker
At certain ages there are certain health screenings, which I'm going to talk about in a minute, keep the results from those. Imaging, x-rays, CAT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, hang on to those results. Discharge summaries from hospitals and scripts, glasses prescriptions, but also medicine scripts. They are all worth keeping copies of in some digital format.
00:08:58
Speaker
Now, you can get some useful information out of your My Health Record after all. In particular, you can find information about any prescription that you've had dispensed. And you can also find records of any doctor that you've been to in terms of the Medicare record. It will tell you what date you saw that doctor. But unless the doctor has actively added information to the My Health Record, you won't be able to see anything else than that.
00:09:22
Speaker
but it can be useful particularly for your children to be able to look back and see what prescriptions they've had over the years if a doctor asks. So from now on when I get sent information I'm going to be saving it to my cloud drive. I know I have so few pieces of paper left I think I have some random things I'm going to be scanning it and uploading it and I guess just starting from here on to collate all of this information. Have you got most of this on hand?
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah. So one of my children had some complicated health conditions when they were younger. So I actually have a hard copy folder of all of the different specialists that we went to. So I do think it's probably time now to actually scan. That was one of my last paper folders that's been left in our house, just so that we've got access to it if we ever needed it. And even if we were overseas or interstate, I think it'd be really helpful just to add that to our one place.
00:10:12
Speaker
And it also means that, you know, it's really easy for us to remember because that's where we save everything. So any record that we get, we can continue to add to that file. One thing we were wondering about was with scripts and whether it's worth leaving scripts at a pharmacy. And with our chats to GPs, we talked about how important it is to establish relationships with a GP and a pharmacy
00:10:36
Speaker
I think I fall into the category of going to the chemist pretty rarely and I will put the script in my bag and if I'm driving around or in the city, literally the next pharmacy, I pass. I'm like, oh, I'll just pop in there and fill the script. So I don't have a relationship with the pharmacist anywhere. My GP that I go to now, I had a great GP. She left.
00:11:00
Speaker
now I see anyone randomly within the clinic and they don't have a relationship with a particular pharmacist. But the advice we've been given is that GPs often do have close relationships with pharmacists and talk about changes in medication, whether it's terms of understanding dosing or understanding changes in formulations or the way that you're taking a medicine. So if you can research and find a great
00:11:24
Speaker
doctor and find a great dentist, a great pharmacy, then this is actually going to be worth the investment in terms of them reminding you of the checkups, things you need, sending reminders about repeats and that kind of thing and optimizing your healthcare because there's these conversations happening across providers and they're all able to contribute their expertise.
Choosing Health Providers and Scheduling Tips
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, you definitely don't want to be looking for a great GP when you really need one. So ask friends or colleagues for recommendations and try the GP out when you're not really sick to make sure that you like them and you feel like you've got good rapport. And if they're not right for you, don't be afraid to look again and to find the right one. And it might be a different GP for yourself and a different one for your children. Yeah, my partner has his own guy that he likes.
00:12:13
Speaker
I prefer to see female GPs. With my kids we've seen this guy that I'm not a fan of. I need to find a new one because he's pretty old school and not in a good way and I have had a recommendation for one for myself but I'm yeah I need to find one for the kids that's a bit more progressive.
00:12:32
Speaker
One thing that's worth talking about with kids is that when they hit around 14 years of age, they can actually see a doctor by themselves. And it's important as they're approaching that age that if you are taking them to the doctor, encouraging them to actually do the communication with the doctor about
00:12:49
Speaker
you know, when the Simpsons started or how they're feeling, it's really important for them to be able to learn to collate their own health information and remember their own medical history. Because there'll be one day when they'll want to see the doctor or they'll need to see the doctor by themselves and you won't be there and they won't know how to communicate with the doctor. So it's something to be encouraged. And 14, they can also get their own Medicare card. And the doctor doesn't legally have to inform you about any consultations or scripts that they might prescribe.
00:13:19
Speaker
after this age, unless they think there's a safety issue, the child's confidentiality and privacy are totally protected. So it's a good way to start to get kids to look after their own admin in this space and be their own health advocates and think about how they're collating their own medical records.
00:13:37
Speaker
And I guess that's a nice segue to think about what kinds of health issues might crop up at different ages and different stages of life. And there's definitely a government focus on making sure people are having certain kinds of screenings at certain ages because
00:13:53
Speaker
those ages are evidence-based, I think. Yeah. There's actually evidence to say that you're more likely to, you know, be prone to that condition. And horrifically, I recently got a letter from the government saying... Yes, I got the same one. You're 45. We recommend that you, you know, jump online, do this quiz. And I was like, oh my God, I am like officially in some new bracket where I've got a whole raft of
00:14:19
Speaker
Health issues coming my way potentially. Oh, that made me feel so old. Our risk factors have just gone up.
00:14:27
Speaker
I think they call it unavoidable risk factor, being old. Welcome to your new risk factors. So there's other checks that you should think about. So I think one that's relevant to most people in Australia is to think about having skin checks. That's one that you can often have done at your GP, but there are also specialist providers if you want to go for the more high tech option. Dental checkups every six months.
00:14:53
Speaker
I feel like it used to be a year when I was a kid. And actually, the evidence says one year is enough. It's only the dentist who go for the six months. I felt like it was just like, let's get them in more often. Unless you've got really bad teeth, once a year is actually fun. Thank you, Dr. Diana.
00:15:12
Speaker
So in your 20s it's recommended for women that they start having pap tests or cervical cancer screening. So in Australia that happens every five years and we're actually sent reminder letters if you go onto the registry. The time thresholds here have changed again based on evidence.
00:15:30
Speaker
I think the time span has increased to five years, to be more frequent. I guess that's another good reason to, if you've got a really good GP, they will actually make sure that they're sending you the reminders at the right intervals so that you don't have to try and become a medical expert. In the 20s men should be starting to check themselves for testicular cancer.
00:15:51
Speaker
STI, sexually transmitted infections. I love it how the language has changed. Yeah, it used to be STDs. Why is it that it's changed? I guess they just, it's an infection. It's not such a crisis anymore. Just zap it with some antibiotics, off we go. And it's also recommended that people start a regimen of pelvic floor exercises. We were all over that time. Definitely was, and I think only after my children. No, didn't know what they were when I was 20.
00:16:17
Speaker
So I think in your 30s you start to think about breast cancer screening but I think that's mostly just the self-check or your doctor will do a check when you usually go for your pap smear. Then there's cholesterol. This is when cholesterol starts to be an issue so that would require a fasting blood test.
00:16:33
Speaker
Once you get to your 40s, our old age, you really need to start thinking about screenings for depression, for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, which are all increased risk factors for people of our age. 50s. This is when it gets even more fun. So the evidence shows that people over the age of 50
00:16:54
Speaker
There's higher risk for bowel cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, so there's screenings for all of those. And you also need to start to think about your bone density depending on what your risk factors are. And then 60s, visual and hearing impairment, glaucoma can be issues, so starting to get regular eye and hearing tests.
00:17:14
Speaker
And once you hit your seven knees, you're starting to think about dementia and Alzheimer's. Yeah, good old memory impairment. Yeah. So depending on your age, have a think about what you've been tested for lately. And the next time you go to the GP or if you want to get motivated, actually make an appointment and go and have yourself screened for some of these potential conditions.
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah, for regular appointments that you're making like the dentist, I think one of the good hacks is to think about making the next appointment when you leave, even if it is a year in advance. And what you can do when you're doing that is try to get the first appointment of the day and then you're less likely for the dentist or the doctor to be running late and that you'll be kept waiting.
00:17:56
Speaker
Absolutely. I kind of refuse now to take an appointment that's after 11 o'clock because they're just usually running so late. I can't remember the last time I had an appointment after then that was within five minutes of the actual time and you just sit there. It's infuriating. So yeah, getting there first thing is fantastic.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I think there's another couple of hacks worth mentioning. It's probably worth putting the phone number of a nurse on call or a home visiting doctor such as 136 into your phone so that if you do need it in a hurry, you're not actually Googling. You've actually got it right there at hand.
00:18:32
Speaker
Yes, also in Victoria at least they have a super care pharmacy initiative where they have made a whole bunch of pharmacies across the state into 24 hours, seven days a week pharmacy. So you can get round the clock access to pharmacists and they usually have a dedicated room service by a registered nurse in the evenings. Can't tell you what a lifesaver knowing where these pharmacies are when you
00:18:57
Speaker
You know, it's Saturday at 11 p.m. when children seem to get sick as soon as the doctor's office is closed. And you can just zap over there. So find out where one is before you need to know it so that you've got that additional peace of mind. So I hope you found all those health hacks useful. Mia, do you have a life-admere hide that you wanted to talk about?
00:19:18
Speaker
I do have a high life admin high.
Admin Tips for Managing Family Activities
00:19:20
Speaker
I have recently, you know, we've just been ushered into the final school term for the year. And I came back from school holidays or in the school holidays, really, the email started to appear for invoices for the various extracurricular activities that my kids do after school and during school. And I realized when I'd registered for these activities at the start of the year, I'd use my personal email address.
00:19:45
Speaker
So I've gradually moved them all across to my admin email address. So now my partner has transparency in terms of the expenditure while we're spending on all these extracurricular activities. And I can also acknowledge that the task of payment needs to be done so we can have a conversation about that. Indina, a life admin low. Is something annoying? Hit your to-do list?
00:20:08
Speaker
It did. So I think recently Uber and Uber Eats have done some sort of app integration. So when I happily ordered my Uber Eats for our Friday night takeaway and pressed order now, I didn't realize that it was using the credit card information that I'd been using in my Uber app, which was my work credit card. So I unintentionally charged my Uber Eats to my work credit card, which then resulted in a whole series of paperwork.
00:20:36
Speaker
for me to reimburse my work for a charge that wasn't related to work. So pretty annoying, pointless task. So yeah, be warned, Uber, make sure that you check the credit card before you press order now. Yeah, that would be annoying and apparent and possibly a little bit embarrassing. There's a little bit. What the hell did you spend six years at my daughter? Oh, Diana, have you got a power tool for us this week?
Travel Journaling and Listener Engagement
00:21:05
Speaker
I haven't actually used it yet, so full disclosure, but a friend of mine has recommended an app which just sounds incredibly appealing to me. It's got a really cute name too, Find Penguins, and it's a travel journal app that you can use when you're travelling, and it prompts you to add a couple of photos for every day and a few comments, and then at the end you can basically press a button and it will
00:21:27
Speaker
order you a photo book. So I'm really keen to try that out, since we're doing a really big holiday at the end of the year. Anything that's going to make organizing digital photos easier, all it is. The idea that you actually can press the button in the airport on the way home is quite appealing to me.
00:21:45
Speaker
So we hope these hacks will make you feel more in control of your health. Our top ideas are that if you don't have a good GP or a dentist you can trust, ask friends and colleagues and keep looking until you find what is worth it. Try and make appointments for the first time slot in the day and make the next appointment before you leave and keep all your health records together in your cloud storage drive so you can access them whenever and from wherever you need.
00:22:13
Speaker
If you'd like to join us on our Life Admin journey, please head to our Facebook page, Life Admin Life Hacks, to follow us and share your thoughts on what we're doing. And feel free to post any comments or certainly post suggestions that we might be able to use. We hope to see you there. Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeadminlifehacks.com. If you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app.