PSA: If your doctor has MyChart, please be careful about how you use it

[BrightPhoenix]

MyChart is an online dashboard for your medical record. It allows you to access stuff like your past visits, tests, etc. For normal people, it's great because you get to see a lot of information and have it all consolidated in one place. For those of us suffering health anxiety, please be careful on how you use this system.

Test results are often available on MyChart BEFORE your visit to your doctor. This makes sense, electronic results are normally faster than when the result gets sent to your doctor. However, this also means you have access to the test result before the doctor does. Unless you're doing some form of CBT-style exposure therapy under guidance from your therapist it might be a good idea not to read these tests.

For us, you may want to avoid reading these tests *before* your visit to the doctor. Because of our HA we will find one tiny thing in the result and over-analyze it. You will be tempted to Google it and it will lead you down a rabbit hole of anxiety, so you're probably better off waiting until you see your doctor.

On the other hand, most of the time your doctor, at the very least your PCP has a *messaging* function on MyChart. This is something you should use if you have a doctor that understands you have health anxiety - if you have a concern message him/her, be precise in your description about what you're feeling. My doctor told me this - he'd rather me message him than going to Dr. Google about it, and I think that makes sense.

[unsure_about_this]

The doctor practice I attend have a similar system, I can see the past visits, and future appointments, but I don't have access to my test results or notes,

I wish there was something where I could put my worries about my health on my profile

[glassgirlw]

Yes, I absolutely hate that results are displayed before speaking to the doctor. Not so much for myself, I just don’t go search it out. But my mother does, and then self diagnosed herself with horrible diseases before she even speaks to the doctor. Drives me crazy. I wish she’d avoid it altogether, but I can’t seem to make her understand that she’s stressing herself out unnecessarily!!