Do you feel powerless at the doctor’s office? Do you wait for hours in waiting rooms, only to have 7 ½ minutes with a doctor who doesn’t answer your questions? Do you pay way too much for pharmaceuticals, receive letters from your insurance company refusing coverage, and wind up with unnecessary procedures you didn’t understand to begin with? Do you feel like you pay more and more for less and less care? If so, you’re like millions of others.

My Story

I myself would have fallen victim to the system had I not been a doctor who knew how to navigate a very confusing and horribly broken health care system. When I had my C-section with my daughter, I warned the anesthesiologist that narcotics make me deathly ill (I’d be a horrible druggie). He reassured me we would use spinal anesthesia rather than IV narcotics, and I would be fine. Not until I got all loopy and started puking my guts out in the recovery room did I think to ask whether someone had given me narcotics. The nurse nodded. They had put morphine in my spinal -- and oh yeah, some of it probably got into my bloodstream.

For the next 24 hours, I puked nonstop. I told the nurse that the only thing that helped me when I took narcotics was the anti-nausea drug Zofran. My doctor had ordered it and the nurses insisted I was getting it. But hours later, when I had no relief, I asked to look at the vial of what they were putting in my IV and calling Zofran. It was the much cheaper but less effective drug with more side effects, Phenergan.

Hours later, I noticed that the catheter draining my bladder had no urine in it -- a dangerous sign post-operatively that can signal kidney failure, or more commonly, severe dehydration. I alerted my nurse, who confirmed that I had not peed for several hours. Only then did I discover that my IV had run dry. I insisted she call my doctor, even though it was late at night.

My doctor, who is a wonderful woman and good doctor, must have been tired that night, because she told the nurse to let me write my own orders, instead of calling her back every hour if I needed more drugs or IV fluids. So I spent the first night after having a baby trying to nurse my baby while juggling managing my own urine output, ordering IV fluid boluses, reminding my nurse when it was time for my Zofran, and basically serving as my own doctor.

This happened at the hospital where I was on staff, at one of the best hospitals in the country, with one of the hospital’s best doctors. If this can happen to me, I don’t even want to imagine what could happen to a lay person.

My hubby’s story

Six months later, my hubby and I were at our vacation home in the country when hubby cut two fingers off his left hand with a table saw, all the way down to the quick of his knuckles. I freaked out and called 911, who insisted they would take him to the closest hospital -- a podunk hospital in the boonies where they would have surely sewed up the bloody knubs of his knuckles and sent him home with Vicodin. When I asked the paramedics to take him to my hospital, a 1 ½ hour drive away, they refused, saying they had to take him to the closest hospital. So I threatened to yank my husband out of the ambulance, stuff him in my car, and drive him there myself. They finally agreed to listen to me.

While the paramedics raced him to the hospital, I stayed behind at the vacation home, calling the emergency room to alert them that my husband was on the way in with two amputated fingers, and that we would need a microsurgeon who specializes in hands -- not an easy feat on a Sunday afternoon.

By the time my hubby arrived at the hospital, the microsurgeon had been alerted and was on his way so the fingers could be sewn back on within the window of time you need in order to have a chance of keeping them alive. After 8 hours in surgery and a week of hospitalization, my writer/artist husband once again has 10 fingers. Had I not done what I did, my husband jokes that you’d be calling him “Crawdaddy.”

Learning to be an empowered patient

In both instances, I was an empowered patient. I spoke up. I questioned authority. I demanded excellence. And we got results.

Even if you’re not a doctor, you can still learn to advocate for yourself and your loved ones. I just finished reading my friend and CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen’s new book The Empowered Patient, which launches August 10 (today!), and if you want to learn how to take your health care into your own hands, I highly recommend this book!

Elizabeth’s book teaches you exactly what you need to know in order to get the most value out of your health care dollar, haggle with your insurance company, find Dr. Right and fire Dr. Wrong, pay less for drugs, avoid a misdiagnosis, make the most out of learning from the internet, get your medical questions answered, stay safe in the hospital, avoid falling prey to medical marketing, and learn to be a “bad” patient.

Tips For How To Be An Empowered Patient (adapted from The Empowered Patient)

1. When your doctor makes a diagnosis, ask your doctor “What else could it be?” (especially if your current treatment isn’t working).
2. Don’t be afraid to get a second opinion.
3. Ask for a copy and read your own test results.
4. Listen to your instincts.
5. Google your doctor.
6. Learn how to “Go Beyond Google” and use specialized search engines that filter out misinformation when you research health care issues on the internet.
7. Seek out and share wisdom with patients who share your diagnosis.
8. Avoid becoming a “cyberchondriac” who thinks she has every disease she reads about on the internet.
9. Make sure your insurance company is legitimate and will actually cover you when you make a claim.
10. If your insurance denies your claim, APPEAL.

When I read Elizabeth’s book, I found myself crying more than once. Don’t worry -- it’s not that kind of book. It just tapped into my own sadness that a book like this even needs to be written. Doctors are supposed to be there to help people. We’re meant to be a person’s advocate. I went to medical school because I’m committed to helping my patients heal. And yet, the system is sorely broken and no band-aid is going to fix these boo boos any time soon. The truth is, this book is vitally necessary. You DO need to understand the system and know how to work it. You can’t just sit back and say, “I trust you, Doc.” Until things get better (and if I do my job well, maybe they will), this book will help you known how to advocate for yourself and those you love the way I did.

What about you? How has the system failed you? What lessons have you learned about being a health care advocate for you and your family? Tell us your horror stories, your successes, and your tips for staying healthy. Maybe, by becoming empowered to speak up and be heard, we can send a big Pink shout out to the Universe, and maybe, just maybe, something will start to shift.

Longing to heal my profession -- but empowering you to stand up for yourself,

Lissa