Getting health care appointments on the calendar can make us all a little frantic. Trying to keep up with them and making sure everyone is going to their doctors can be stressful. A favorite tip for making sure that all the healthcare appointments for the entire family are scheduled and ready to go, so no stress is involved is to create a recurring calendar appointment with all of the doctor and appointment information included.Making one calendar invite for the year relieves the stress of managing all those appointments.
Set Up A Recurring Invite
The time management tip is to set a recurring invite at the beginning of each quarter which includes a table of all required appointment information. Set the invite for an hour. In the invite, include a table with all of the required information for making appointments. Include all of the information for each person you schedule or worry about appointments for whether it’s your kids, husband, parents, or other family members into a table. Save that table into the invite and stress less.
Create the Health Care Appointment Table
1. In the calendar invite, create a table and list everyone for whom you make appointments.
2. Then under each name, add in all the names of their doctors along with their contact information; OBGYN, general practitioner, dentist, specialists, therapists etc.
3. Next, going across the top , add each month of the year to a column January to December creating a chart
4. After that, you’ll want to put an x in the month that person should be going to do doctor or two X’s if they need to see the doctor more than once a month
a. Example: If I schedule my OBGYN appointment every November I’m going to put an X in the November box; if my husband needs to go to the dental hygienist twice a year then I will put an X in February and in November along that dentist line. That way you know that you’ve marked when people need to be at the doctor so you can know when you need to make an appointment.
b. As you make those appointments, update the X’s with the dates and times of the appointments. So, when I make my OBGYN appointment I am going to mark November 13th at 9 A.M. in the box. The X is removed and I have a date and a time there. Do this for everyone as you make their appointments.
5. On a quarterly basis when you get the invite reminder, open up that invite and review the table. Go through the table looking for the X’s that don’t have dates, call those providers and then replace the X’s with dates.
Bonus tip: If you can, make the next appointment with any provider before leaving the office. It might seem like a waste of time to spend another minute in their office, but it’s not. Getting the next appointment scheduled while you are there saves you a long and drawn out phone call. It also saves you the stress of having to remember to call back.
Encourage those who you don’t go to the doctor with to do the same. Even if they don’t at least you have the table with X’s to remind you for them.
Take Action
Depending on the number of people in your family, setting this table up can be time consuming. Block time, right now to complete this task, so that you can stress less for the rest of year.
If you are looking for more self-care tips, check out this article on staying connected to yourself and others.
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