Dr. Amy Nett: No, follow-ups are generally to follow up on labs that were previously ordered. When I have a follow-up appointment, we’ll go over, “What are your symptoms? What’s going on most recently? Do we have any new lab tests to review? Based on your symptoms, based on your most recent lab testing, here are the treatment modifications we’re going to make, and here’s the additional testing we’re going to do.” Most often, I’ll then say to follow up once we have the results of those repeat tests. Occasionally patients will say, “Hey, I’m going to be following up with you in four weeks. Can you order a repeat hormone profile? Can you order a repeat of this?” but most often, from the prior appointment, we’ve already ordered what’s going to be needed at the next appointment.
We use MD HQ, and there’s that patient portal where patients send in questions, and it’s a bit of a struggle. Right now I’m spending probably over an hour per day just going through questions and new test results, so I try to be as efficient as I can during the appointment time, which, to me, includes all the testing we’re going to need for next time because I’m minimizing the questions that come in in between appointments. It takes a lot of time if someone says, “Hey, I’m going to be seeing you. What else should we do?” Then I have to go back to their chart and see what we’ve ordered and what the symptoms are. To me, that’s, “What are your symptoms? What do we need to keep looking at?” In terms of what labs I order, that’s generally discussed during an appointment and then followed up at the next appointment.