Tips for Organizing ADHD Medical Records

For adults with ADHD, developing a system for keeping health records is more difficult than for others, but also more important. Follow this advice to make keeping clear health records easier.

For most adults, organizing medical records can be a nuisance, but it’s usually not difficult. For adults with ADHD, however, keeping track of the health records that detail ADHD treatment and other conditions is very challenging.

“As a general task, a lot of people with ADHD would say, ‘I can’t sort, I can’t organize, I can’t keep records,’” explains Lana A. Tiersky, PhD, director of the Adult ADHD Clinic and associate professor in the school of psychology, both at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, N.J.

Yet for adults with ADHD, keeping up with their medical records is more important than for the average person, especially if they are regularly receiving ADHD treatment. Organized records make it possible to keep medical bills in order — to know what has been paid and what has not. Relevant health records can also be helpful when seeking further education or for human resources purposes, but you have to be able to find them.

Here are helpful ideas for organizing those medical records:

• Get assistance. Ask a friend or relative to help you, or hire someone — it’s perfectly acceptable if you can afford it.
• Identify the purpose. If you know why you need the records, you can make better decisions about how to organize them. Motivational goals include keeping track of paid bills, planning to make an argument for medical need, storing high-priority ADHD treatment records where you can find them, or simply maintaining a complete medical history for yourself or others in your family. Write down your goals to reinforce them.
• Find a quiet space. You’re looking for a place with few distractions, where you can keep your files, and where you have a computer, says Tiersky. If you don’t have a spare room or even a closet to call your office, make sure others in your home know not to touch your paperwork.
• Develop a filing system. Decide how you want to organize your health records and create the files accordingly. If you think you are going to need to submit them to your insurance company, find out if you need to organize them by timeframe or by treatment provider, suggests Tiersky. Keep a pad close at hand to write down any questions you need to ask for your insurance provider. This way you’ll have notes to refer to, if needed. Options for a system include filing information according to the name of your healthcare providers, by year, or by family member and year if organizing household records as well as your own. Knowing your ultimate goal will help you decide on the right filing system.
• Decide on a format. You will probably need files and storage boxes or a file cabinet, but you should also consider whether a computer program might help you or if a ledger pad is good enough. Keeping a spreadsheet of bills submitted and paid can give you an easy visual indication of what is outstanding.
• Prioritize. Figure out the most important pieces of information that you will need to get to quickly. Tiersky emphasizes that for people in ADHD treatment, psychological evaluations and even school records are high- priority health records.
• Break down the task. Once you have a basic format set and an idea of what you want to achieve, break your steps down into manageable tasks on a checklist and then go step-by-step, day-by-day. Be as specific as you want, with even as basic a step as “clear desktop to make space for files.” Marking off each step as you accomplish it will feel great.
• Ask for help. “Acknowledge how much you can do on your own and what you need help with,” says Tiersky. For example, not everyone can create the perfect spreadsheet — it’s okay to get help from a more computer savvy family member or friend. In any case, you should probably let your partner, a trusted friend, or a relative know where your important health records are, in the event of an emergency.

Organizing medical records is necessary to stay on top of the many details of your health records. Take the time to set up a system that works for you.