Medical Estate Planning and Records

In this day of electronic records, it is still a good idea to track what medicines you take currently, and have taken in the past as part of your medical estate planning.

It is actually a simple task to create a spreadsheet in Google or Excel to track your medicines, how much, when, and who prescribed it.

Here is a sample of my tracking spreadsheet.  Notice that it has the medicine, how it is taken, the dose and units of dose, when, who ordered it, their speciality, the time of day and reason it is being taken.

Medicine Route Dose Unit Timing From To Ordering Physician Specialty Timing Reason
Oxygen canula 2 liters sleeping Fomin, Dimitry Neurology/Sleep PM sleep apnea
CPAP nasal 6 to 10 cm H20 sleeping Fomin, Dimitry Neurology/Sleep PM sleep apnea
Tramadol PO 50 mg 1 or 2 PRN James Blankenship Neurosurgeon PRN pain

Also, I have a separate worksheet in Excel that has the medicines I have taken in the past so I have a history.

Then, you should create another spreadsheet that has your procedures in it with as so:

Procedure When Who Where Why
Remove transverse process from T1 5/15/1985 Dr. Carry Couch Stillwater, OK Alluvial fracture of spinous process of T1
Rhinoplasty 12/20/1997 Dr. Fincher Fayetteville, AR Deviated septum. Left side of nose unusable

Now, when you go to see a new doctor, you don’t have to take all those bottles or try to remember everything.  Just print out the spreadsheets and voila, you are ready.