Getting Indoor Papers after Patient’s Discharge

When discharged from the hospital after being treated successfully, the patient and relatives feel relieved that they may not have to come back. However, they soon realize that they will have to return (may be a few times) to the hospital just to get the requisite indoor papers to file their claim for health insurance.

This process of getting these indoor papers often becomes cumbersome and more so frustrating. Because it’s an interaction between 3 parties – the TPA, you and the hospital – it’s very easy to forget obtaining / sending an important record simply due to communication gaps.

Post-treatment care of the patient is really important; time and effort of the relative should be focused on patient support and care rather running around for papers. 

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get all the hospitalization records at home? – For starters it saves the travel trouble. It will be even better if you also get softcopies of the records – so that you can share them easily with the TPA and also keep them as record – becomes a part of patient’s medical history – especially helpful if he / she may have to be treated for some ailment in the future.

Use the internet for Doctor’s Opinion

Diagnosis of ailments as well as patient care in some parts of the world – West Africa, Central Asia, Middle East are still suboptimal.  Based on the good reputation of Indian doctors, various entities in India, including the Government are pushing the case for Medical Tourism.

Although the healthcare in India is far cheaper than any of the Western Countries; in absolute terms it can still cost a lot. Here comes in a scope for medium which empowers the patient overseas to gauge the need to come to India.

Consider this – I live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I am a patient suffering from an advanced disorder and am consulting a specialist doctor from Mumbai. Won’t it be great if I can share my latest reports (done in my home town) with the doctor easily through the internet. This will not only keep the doctor up-to-date with my latest medical findings, but also enable him to promptly advise me whether I need to travel to Mumbai.

Sharing of records can be done via email. However, this may make it difficult for the doctor to compare the latest findings with the previous ones. So you need one place where you can store all your records, in the way the doctor wants to view it – so he / she can easily compare you current results with historical ones – this makes a case for web based EHR.

This may be applicable in B and C-tier towns in India as well – when a patient needs to looks for a doctor in a metro for an opinion.