I've seen patients (both family and non) meaningfully improve their health outcomes with statistically-significant frequency primarily via 4 methods.
1. Take ownership of their own medical records, learn them, and bring them to appointments. The most common failure in the current US medical system is incomplete/missing record transfer because of disconnected systems. Physicians will almost always attempt to confirm critical details, but that doesn't help if the patient says "I don't know."
2. Learn basic medical system-level knowledge relevant to a case. E.g. college 1xx freshman-level. No need to become an expert, but if a patient is dealing with kidney issues... it's pretty important to learn the basics about what kidneys are and do.
3. Ask about alternatives. "If we didn't go with that plan, what would be your next two recommended plans, and why aren't they first?" Having that alternative context is especially helpful when visiting specialists / other parties, as the patient can more fully describe the thinking behind their treatment plan. Also when researching online, the context helps avoid obvious pitfalls. (And yes, sometimes the reason will be "Because your insurance wouldn't cover X", which is also useful to know)
4. Use second options to measure uncertainty about the primary plan (e.g. everyone agrees vs it's debatable), but don't treatment-shop. The useful piece of information is opening a discussion about specific alternatives, while also listening to reasons against them.
Peer reviewed studies are surprisingly accessible (e.g. PubMed et al.), but they're also functionally useless without basic medical knowledge and details about a specific case.
Finally, for potentially lethal and/or lengthy conditions, I'm a firm believer that any empowerment improves outcomes simply by making the patient feel more involved and in control of their care.
Almost every "that could have been avoided" case I know was a willfully-ignorant and/or disinterested patient.
1. Take ownership of their own medical records, learn them, and bring them to appointments. The most common failure in the current US medical system is incomplete/missing record transfer because of disconnected systems. Physicians will almost always attempt to confirm critical details, but that doesn't help if the patient says "I don't know."
2. Learn basic medical system-level knowledge relevant to a case. E.g. college 1xx freshman-level. No need to become an expert, but if a patient is dealing with kidney issues... it's pretty important to learn the basics about what kidneys are and do.
3. Ask about alternatives. "If we didn't go with that plan, what would be your next two recommended plans, and why aren't they first?" Having that alternative context is especially helpful when visiting specialists / other parties, as the patient can more fully describe the thinking behind their treatment plan. Also when researching online, the context helps avoid obvious pitfalls. (And yes, sometimes the reason will be "Because your insurance wouldn't cover X", which is also useful to know)
4. Use second options to measure uncertainty about the primary plan (e.g. everyone agrees vs it's debatable), but don't treatment-shop. The useful piece of information is opening a discussion about specific alternatives, while also listening to reasons against them.
Peer reviewed studies are surprisingly accessible (e.g. PubMed et al.), but they're also functionally useless without basic medical knowledge and details about a specific case.
Finally, for potentially lethal and/or lengthy conditions, I'm a firm believer that any empowerment improves outcomes simply by making the patient feel more involved and in control of their care.
Almost every "that could have been avoided" case I know was a willfully-ignorant and/or disinterested patient.