If you are like most heart patients, at minimum, you see three physicians regularly—a family doctor, a urologist or gynecologist, and a cardiologist--and that's when your health is otherwise generally good. If you have other medical problems you could be seeing as many as nine doctors, adding a cardiac surgeon, electrophysiologist (if you have an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD), pulmonologist (if you have lung problems), endocrinologist (if you have diabetes), a vascular surgeon or interventional radiologist (if you have peripheral vascular disease). And this only accounts for the physicians you will see regarding heart disease! In addition to heart disease, many patients also have cancer or other diseases that further multiply their cast of medical providers.

Patients who enter cardiac rehabilitation have the added “blessings” of being advised by exercise physiologists, nurses, nutritionists, vocational counselors, and mental health professionals.

While each of these professionals will try to talk with you in ways that are meant to be helpful, their advice may sometimes be confusing. Plus, this “team” may not communicate with each other very clearly. In fact, various members of your health care team may sometimes give you very different advice—advice that contradicts what someone else may be advising you.

You are fortunate if one of your physicians takes on the role of coordinating your medical care. Many people do not have such a health-care team manager. Rather than passively complaining about your various health care providers not communicating with each other, make it happen! Take responsibility for coordinating your team.

Make a list of the names and addresses of the various health care professionals involved in your care, and provide each of them with the list. Let each know that it is important to you that they take responsibility for communicating details of your treatment to the other players. Give each a list of the names and addresses and phone numbers of all of the other providers involved in your care, and ask that they regularly update each member of your health care team. Ask to sign permission forms that state your wish that they convey important information about your treatment to the people you want to keep in the information loop. Don’t wait for the doctor to request this permission; you make the request. Doing so conveys the message that you expect to receive coordinated medical care.

And, regardless of which member of the team you are consulting, bring along a list of the all of the medications you are taking and their dosages. Include in the list any vitamins, herbal treatments, or over-the-counter medicines you use. Give your health care provider a copy of the list that can be kept in your files. You might do so with the friendly statement, “Just to make sure that we’re all on the same page about what I’m taking for my various problems, I made this copy for you to keep.”

This article was adapted from information presented more fully in Thriving With Heart Disease, by W. Sotile with R Cantor-Cook. New York: The Free Press, 2003. Copyright W. Sotile, 2003. All rights reserved.

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