Can I ask my doc to remove a Dx from my chart?
As a physician, I’d be happy to discuss with any of my patients what diagnoses and history I record about them — because lord knows, mistakes make it into charts here and there — but I can’t imagine a time when I’d remove a properly-made diagnosis or a properly-recorded bit of history from a patient’s medical record. For one thing, it’s engaging in a flat-out lie, as if I never made the diagnosis or elicited the history; for another, if the patient ever developed a complication related to that bit of information, and I didn’t have a way to demonstrate that I knew about it and was engaging in the right treatment or counseling or whatever to deal with it, I’d be opening myself up to a hell of a hard time explaining how I hadn’t done my job. All in all, it’s a lose-lose for the physician, all surrounding an actual bit of truth that a patient doesn’t want to face. I’d also have to say that your concern about removing it from your chart “for future insurance reasons” is superbly concernin
