My doctor recently asked me about a medication I was taking. Trouble was, I wasn’t taking it and had never been prescribed it. It was a mistake in my medical records.

I was lucky to find out. Medical errors that remain in our files can cause health insurance companies to reject our applications for coverage or, worse, cause doctors to make inappropriate diagnoses that could endanger our health.

Deborah Peel, MD, a practicing physician for more than 30 years and founder of Patient Privacy Rights, a health information privacy watchdog organization, says that mistakes in medical records are distressingly common.

The frightening truth, according to Dr. Peel, is that “you have to check your records yourself—your life could depend on it.” Health-care providers are required to give you copies of your medical records upon request.

Patients historically have had to pay a per-page fee for retrieval and copying of their records, but the digitalization of medical records means that retrieving records now is easy and copying is unnecessary. Ask to have a digital copy of your files e-mailed to you, rather than a printed copy mailed to you. If you have many files, start with the most recent.

When you get your records, scan them for mistakes. If you find anything that you don’t understand, call the health-care provider’s office and ask for assistance. If you find a mistake, ask the provider to amend the inaccurate information.

It’s worth having a copy of your records even if you don’t spot mistakes. You can give them to doctors when you seek second opinions or see a specialist for the first time.

Source: Deborah Peel, MD, practicing physician based in Austin, Texas, and founder of Patient Privacy Rights. http://PatientPrivacyRights.org

He must have a boyfriend now so he’s going to go public with his “surprise, I’m out” rhetoric. And just who is surprised?

Unless he get caught pounding clay in a public restroom he’s got a job, even if no one watches. As other’s pointed out, he does come from a very public family with wealth but don’t know if he’ll see any of it.

Now that we’ve got black, gay, latino, Muslim and so many more TV channels, can we have a white straight one. For you lefties, Fox isn’t all white and straight.

Nobody is bullied in school for being straight and straight people aren’t banned from marrying the person they love or banned from adopting or executed (as they are in some countries) for it.

If you don’t care don’t comment. If you do comment you do care, and if you’re attitude is “who cares” it’s probably because it makes you feel uncomfortable.

This is something I have known for some time and thought that it was time to share this revelation.