The Patient's Little Instruction Book

This booklet is designed as a reference to guide the reader through the tangled web of doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and HMOs. It includes questions to ask one's physician, what one can do to ensure the best treatment, and how to contain costs.

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Empower your patients! When you become a patient you enter into "The Twilight Zone." Besieged with forms, insurance jargon, and impatient medical personnel, patients find themselves faced with many questions and few answers. This handy little book will serve as the patients' bible to help navigate the web of physicians, hospitals, insurance companies, and HMOs. The Patient's Little Instruction Book doles out must-have advice via simple one-liners. It includes questions that patients should ask, what they can do to receive the best treatment, their rights as patients, and how to contain costs. Patients, physicians, and the entire hospital staff will enjoy the witty comments that help make health care less complex and mysterious. Here's a sampling of the vast wisdom contained in this little book: * Most people spend more time researching and evaluating the purchase of a VCR than they do choosing a doctor, hospital, or health plan. * Good patient-doctor communication is essential to good care. * If you are having an operation on one side of your body, write WRONG SIDE in red magic marker on the other side.
* Never take any unfamiliar medication without a full explanation from the nurse as to what it is, who ordered it, and what it is for. Medication errors occur in hospitals every day. * You have the responsibility to prevent illness by following your doctor's advice and by practicing good health maintenance.