Do you think you are health literate? For many people in this country, a visit to the doctor causes anxiety and stress and then when they are left with home care instructions they don’t understand they might inadvertently worsen their condition. Patients who are not health literate could have a more negative outcome.

It seems like we should blame the patient when they do not follow their treatment course as prescribed, but unfortunately medical information can be hard to digest and even harder to figure out by yourself. They don’t have this class in school. If you don’t know what to look for you can miss the signs or symptoms of an impending health crisis, and misinterpret labels or directions on medications. Medical questionnaires may be misleading or confusing. Many patients may not ask questions because they are already anxious enough about being in the hospital and they may just be tuning out what the doctor says, or they feel like the doctor is in a rush and doesn’t have time for their questions.

The Washington Post reported that a study conducted by the United States Department of Education found over a third of adults have a basic, or below-basic, understanding of health materials. Maybe they are directed by the hospital to taken a certain medication, but they end up taking it the wrong way when they get home because they don’t understand the label or the directions given by their doctor. These kinds of misunderstandings can have tragic consequences. For workers’ comp purposes they can mean the patient gets worse and not better, remains out of work longer, and may not come back to their full capacity. This could increase costs as well. The report cited a 2007 study which estimates that this problem costs the country between $106 billion and $238 billion a year. That is a large spread, and just an estimate, but even if you take the lowest estimate $106 billion is nothing to sneeze at. Medical spend is a large part of workers’ compensation costs, and having patients re-admitted to the hospital because they did not understand what was expected of them initially can add to those costs.

The Joint Commission, an independent organization that certifies health programs, started requiring hospitals to use “plain-language” in both written and verbal care so that a patient could understand. For example, instead of writing “febrile” write feverish on materials that are given to patients. For patients that have trouble with reading comprehension or with English in general, some medical centers are giving patients videos or diagrams that show patients what to do when they are released from the hospital. One program from the Boston Medical Center said these kinds of practices have reduced re-admission rates by 30 percent and resulting costs by 33 percent. Their patients received a booklet specific to their needs that gave them instructions on making the right follow-up appointments, and they received a call from a pharmacist several days after they were initially discharged. Other doctors are using a “teach back” method, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Cindy Brach. This means that a doctor will tell the patient what needs to be done, and then the patient has to repeat that back to the doctor to indicate they understand.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends a few ways that individuals can help themselves to improve their health literacy. They suggest asking the doctors and nurses to use common language at the start of the appointment, and writing down the information they tell you or asking for common language materials with the information on it, so you have it to rely on later. Ask a friend or family member to go with you to appointments. Though there are things the medical community can do to try and solve this problem, individual patients can try to improve their own health literacy too.

Read more at the Paradigm Corp Blog