The Portal

If you are a college football fan, you probably think this post is about the NCAA Football transfer portal, which allows players enrolled at one school to transfer at any time as long as they have remaining eligibility.   It’s not.  This post is about the online Health Portal which comes with my health plan here in Utah.  By signing on to The Portal, I can make appointments with my doctors, request refills of prescriptions, check the dates of previous visits and review the results of those visits.   For person who doesn’t like using the phone, isn’t good with dates and doesn’t maintain a personal calendar recording everything I do (as my wife does), it is a Godsend for monitoring my health care.   Another feature is that results of tests, from simple blood work to MRIs, show up quickly in The Portal, often a day or two before the doctor gats back to you with the results.  That is a feature on which my wife and I have a difference of opinion.  She waits to hear what her doctor says about the results and I look as soon as the results appear in The Portal.

The problem is that most specialists evaluating test results provide a Just-the Facts-Ma’am report on medical tests laced with 14 letter medical terms that only someone in the medical profession would understand.  And it always seems as if this terminology is designed to make any findings sound as horrible as possible.  Let me give you an example.  Last year, after dealing with leg pain for month, my doctor sent me for an MRI of my spine.   The report was in my Portal before the end of the day, summarized as follows: Degenerative spondylosis most pronounced at L4-5 with severe canal and foraminal narrowing, grade 1 anterolisthesis in the setting of severe facet arthropathy.  See what I mean?  Naturally, I headed to the internet to find the meaning of every word, not that it gave me much comfort.  It wasn’t until several days later when I got to see my doctor that he told me, You have mild arthritis in your lower spine.  It’s common in men your age.    My wife reminded me again: I told you that you should wait to hear from the doctor.

Did I listen?  Nope.  Just yesterday I had some tests done and the technician told me everything looked good.  So when the report arrived, I read it right away and found that the radiologist’s report was again filled with many-lettered medical terms describing things that didn’t look right.  Shit!  I messaged my doctor (through The Portal), asking if I should come in and see him to talk about the result.  The next morning he responded:  It’s nothing to worry about for a man your age.

I still probably haven’t learned my lesson.  That too is very common in men my age.

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Tags: doctors, humor, senior health

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