One of the perks of growing old is the number of doctors and times you get to visit them. If you’re lucky, they’re hot and you enjoy the visits. Most likely they’re not and you spend a lot of time waiting in the exam room. But I digress. Let’s discuss portals.

A portal is an on-line site containing your medical information. In theory, it sounds great. I or my doctors can find all my medical information and history, making it quicker, if not easier to connect the dots to find out what is ailing me. In practice, it doesn’t work that way. It seems every practice has its own portal. I am on six different portals now, my primary care, vascular surgeon, hematologist, pain doctor, eye doctor, and neurologist. I’m not even counting the two major blood testing portals or the radiation testing portal. I had to create a spreadsheet to keep track of them all.

It’s my information. It’s about me, I paid for it, or my insurance company did, so why do I have no say in where it resides? Stupid question. It’s a problem but not a big enough one that anyone wants to work on it. Read that as there is no money to be made by solving it. I hate to surface a problem and not propose a solution. So here goes.

A friend who is a neurologist selects his care by the portal they are on. That way he limits it to one portal. What criteria do you use to select care? Probably on line reviews. And how good are they? It’s hit or miss. I’ve gone to doctors with great reviews and had a terrible experience. So why not go with portals as your criteria?

How about it? Can you propose a solution? I’d love to hear it?