Maybe you’ve exhausted your hometown’s medical resources. Or maybe your doctors want to collaborate with a research facility regarding your condition. Or maybe you just want the expertise of the top specialists. Going to the Mayo Clinic is something many people only do once, and it really is to your benefit to be prepared. What follows are tips that are specific to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, but most can be applied to a trip to any major specialty facility or research hospital. The most important items, medical biographies and summaries, will be included at the end of this article.

Setting Up
The best way to get a timely appointment with the Mayo Clinic is to have your current doctor (or doctors, in some cases) send them a referral. A referral from a specialist will carry more weight than one from a general practitioner. Depending on the department you are requesting, you may be able to get in without a prior authorization, but be advised you may not be seen for six months or even longer. If you have a referral, you can cut the wait to half that, or even less if you have a condition that requires prompt attention. The Mayo Clinic has a slow season from November to March, so if you try to set up an appointment during those months, you may get in faster.
If you have insurance, check in advance whether the services of a specialty facility are covered, particularly if you must travel out of state to get there. Many companies require prior authorization for any medical service outside your listed insurance network. Some do cover facilities such as Mayo but at a lower rate and/or a higher deductible. Whatever the case in your situation, you must have authorizations completed prior to your first appointment or be prepared to pay for all charges yourself.
Once you have an appointment confirmed, have your current doctors send recent records and applicable test results to the clinic directly if there is time. The Mayo Clinic requests originals of x-rays, biopsy slides, MRIs, etc. for review when applicable. If your current doctors do not have these in their possession, you can usually get information from their office staff as to the location of these things and arrange for the lab or facility that has them to send them to Mayo with the understanding that the clinic will return them after review. You can hand carry the films or records if necessary to your appointment, but it will save a lot of time if they have already been reviewed before you are seen.
Ideally, if you have multiple medical conditions, multiple doctors or have been ill several years, you should have your own copies of your medical records. If you do not have records from previous doctors regarding your relevant ailments, arrange for them ASAP. You need to know what is in them in case they may prove useful for your upcoming appointment.
If there is sufficient time prior to your appointment, you may get a packet from the clinic containing a schedule, general hospital info and map, a list of items to bring to your appointment, forms to fill out and any special instructions that may apply. Read through all of this carefully and call the clinic if you have any questions rather than waiting until you get there.
Your schedule should tell you roughly how many days you can expect to be there. For example, if you are seen by the rheumatology department at Mayo, the average is three to six business days to allow for any testing that needs to be done. This is subject to change, of course, but it does give you a general guideline.
If you will be an outpatient and will be visiting from out of town, you will need to secure accommodations away from the hospital. Luckily, there are usually several choices available to you if you reserve as soon as you know your arrival date. Generally, the closer to the hospital and the more amenities a hotel has, the higher the room rate will be, but be sure to ask if they have a discount rate for patients.
In Rochester, there are actually hotels across the street from the Mayo Clinic that are connected with a walkway so you don’t even have to step outdoors. But you can save money if you stay further out and use the free shuttle service most hotels have. And if you need to prepare your own meals due to dietary restrictions, there are places with kitchenettes that are very reasonably priced. Once you settle on a place to stay, you can MapQuest the nearest restaurants, grocery stores or any other place you think you might need.
After you have your accommodations figured out, it is time to tackle any paperwork you are going to need. Completely fill out all forms you have been given to the best of your ability and deliver them in the manner specified. Some departments want them sent ahead of time; others want you to bring them to your appointment yourself.
If you will be driving to the Mayo Clinic, have your car checked over thoroughly before you leave, especially during the winter. The last thing you want is to be stranded in or on the way to Rochester, Minnesota with a dead battery during a blizzard in below zero temperatures. During the winter, carry emergency supplies such as blankets, food, water, sand for traction, first aid kit, etc.
Once You Get There
If it is possible to get to the place you are staying the day before your appointment, please do so and get some rest that night. Don’t forget to fast or discontinue medications prior to the appointment if you have been instructed to so do. If you have no restrictions, you may still want to have a light supper and some quiet time before retiring.
The Mayo Clinic does have car parking, but the space is limited, and it is tough to get very close to the hospital. If you use the hotel shuttle, you will be dropped off right at the front door. The shuttles run about every hour and a half, and they are free, but they do take tips (a dollar per person per trip should suffice). Your hotel should provide you with a precise schedule.
The Mayo campus is huge. Most of the buildings are connected by walkways, so you don’t have to hike around outdoors most times, but there can still be a considerable distance to cover, which can present a challenge to those with mobility or energy limitations. Fortunately, the clinic has dozens of wheelchairs right at the entrance with padded seats and calf supports, so don’t be shy about using one if there is any chance you’ll have trouble getting from point A to point B on your own. If you are traveling alone, there are staff available to push your chair for you, and once you get to the department where you have your appointment, people there will be more than happy to help you out. There is also a shop on the main level where you can rent an electric scooter.
Be early for your appointment. The schedule in most departments is very tight, and you don’t want them to move on to the next patient because they thought you were a no-show. Check in at the front desk of the section listed on your schedule as soon as you arrive, and they will make sure everything is in order before you are seen.
During your appointment, the doctor will review everything the clinic has been sent and everything you have brought with you. If you require testing or referrals to other departments, this will be arranged. If a doctor in another department wants further tests, they will usually handle that. You will be issued a revised schedule every time something is added or completed; make sure you read it thoroughly, particularly any test prep instructions. Once you have completed all exams and consultations, you will return to the doctor you saw first to summarize the findings, set up treatment plans, give you copies of any notes that are ready, and answer any final questions you may have.
The Mayo Clinic is surprisingly flexible in its scheduling as they understand that most patients haven’t got the luxury of staying in Rochester for several weeks just to complete a couple of tests. If you find yourself with a large gap in time between tests or consultations, you can always go to the appropriate department to see if you can be moved up. You can volunteer to be a “checker”, meaning you physically wait around to see if there are any cancellations or a doctor in that department who is willing to squeeze you in early. Keep in mind, though, that some tests must be completed in a certain order and that some doctors may need the results of a test in hand before they can consult with you. Still, the clinic is quite impressive in its efficiency: in a single week, I was able to squeeze in three consultations, three MRI’s, four neurological tests, two heart tests, a CT scan and blood work.
Don’t forget to plan for meals and/or snacks, particularly if you are going to be at the hospital all day long. There is a large cafeteria on the main floor of the Mayo Clinic along with sandwich and other fast places to eat in a strip mall-like area. If you have to fast for any length of time, you may want to carry your own food to eat immediately after your test. This is especially important if you are diabetic. And it would be a good idea to carry water with you to remind you to stay hydrated.
There are likely to be times when you have to hang around a waiting room for hours. What do you do for entertainment? You can bring your own in the form of reading material, hand held games, music players, cards, etc. Just make sure to follow any policies regarding cell phones or other devices during tests or in offices. Some departments actually have entertainment in the waiting rooms besides old magazines. There may be televisions or puzzles. A couple of areas even have computers set up for patients to use, which is a great way to pass the time.
A single doctor appointment can be exhausting, particularly when you’re sick to start with. But multiple days of testing and consultations can really wipe you out. Fortunately, the Mayo Clinic has a room on the first floor for patients to take naps in between appointments.
Essential Paperwork – Summaries and Biographies
I was fortunate enough to receive excellent advice from other Mayo patients regarding how much documentation you should provide beyond the requested forms and what data is the most useful. This is tricky as you want to give them enough for an accurate medical history but not so much that they must sift through miles of records containing irrelevant information. This is where summaries and bios can be valuable assets, particularly for patients with multiple medical conditions spanning many years.
If you have your ailments monitored with tests on a regular basis, rather than providing a separate sheet of paper for every test, put the results from all the tests on a chart so that they can be compared easily. For example, if you had a sed rate taken every three months for the past 10 years, make a list of the results along with the date each test was done. Be sure to include the reference range for the test as some laboratories use different ones. You can group similar tests together so that a doctor can easily find what applies to their specialty. For example, list all the testing related to the digestive tract on one page, all the arthritis x-ray interpretations together, etc.
Please take the time to create a medical biography to bring to your appointment. This will put the most essential information about you into one place and will ensure that you don’t forget to tell the doctor anything important. It will help the hospital help you.
At the top of each page of your medical summary, list your name, date of birth and patient number if you have been assigned one. Some Mayo patients have found it useful to include a small photo of themselves on the first page so that the doctor has a face to go with the name. In the first paragraph, list your age, occupation or former occupation, your primary diagnosis or diagnoses, and if you are disabled, the primary disabling symptoms.
Next, list your reason or reasons for your visit. Are you there for an undiagnosed condition? Are you seeking a second opinion? Do you want more treatment options? Referrals? Tests? Do you need support for filing for disability? Have specific goals in mind that you want accomplished before your visit ends.
The third paragraph of your biography should be a brief review of your medical history relevant to your current illness. List what year the ailment or ailments started, what the first symptom was and the severity of it. If your disease was progressive, list when additional symptoms began or when you got worse. If any important diseases have been ruled out, mention them. If you have lost the ability to work, note when this happened and when any other major quality of life changes have occurred.
The next section will vary according to how complex your medical situation is. If you have a single disease that governs a single area of the body, you will likely just need one bulleted list of your symptoms and what you are doing for them. If you have several ailments or one ailment that affects several parts or functions of the body, you may want multiple paragraphs arranged by organ system, such as: rheumatic, neurological, gastrointestinal, ENT, endocrine, pulmonary, etc. If you expect to be seeing specialists in more than one department, classifying your data this way will point each specialist to exactly what they need to know.
If you have specific questions you need answered, list them. These can be disease-specific, treatment-specific, anything. Or you can detail particular concerns you may have.
If you have additional important info that either not was asked for in any forms or didn’t fit on the forms, add it after your list of questions. For instance, if you have more than one current specialist, list all their contact info. If you have tried many medications without success, list them and what happened when you took them. Be sure to include the following if it is not listed elsewhere: current medication/supplements with dosage and frequency, allergies/sensitivities to medications and/or substances, surgeries with dates, diseases in immediate family members.
As for which medical records to have on hand, bring copies of anything specifically referred to in your summary or that was used to diagnose a particular condition, such as a biopsy report or abnormal MRI. That way, if anything in your bio piques a doctor’s curiosity, they can look at the more detailed data. If you have many years’ worth of tests, you may want to include only those done in the past few years if the older ones are similar or not diagnostic. Office notes by other doctors can prove quite helpful, but you probably only need the ones from the last two years or so and the ones where a diagnosis was made or where a major change in your condition was described. If you have records covering several specialties, you may want to group them in the order that they appear in your bio so they can be located more easily.
Once you have your charts, bio and copies of records and office notes all gathered, you may want to organize them into a single folder or binder so that they are easy to carry and you won’t lose anything. I put all of mine in a three ring binder with tabs for the medical specialties so the doctors could flip through the pages easily and remove anything they needed to copy. The neurologist I saw thanked me profusely for this as he wanted to spend the majority of my appointment discussing my condition, not wading through dozens or even hundreds of medical records trying to find out what he needed to know.
Compiling all this data may be a pain, but it is worthwhile in the long run. And if you keep copies of your charts and bio on your computer, you can update them as needed and print out new ones for every new doctor you see. Ultimately, you are the one responsible for ensuring your health care providers get the proper information to enable them to give you the correct diagnosis and treatment.
Submitted by: Karen Brauer, Butyoudontlooksick.com, © 2008