Introduction:

medical history summaries (MHS) issued by rheumatologists are requested by patients for various procedures. Not completing them denies access to health benefits, this implies that physicians spend time on a purely bureaucratic requirement. The objectives were: to determine the frequency of MHS requested and issued in our service during a semester and the time dedicated to them; to describe the reasons for the request and the characteristics of the applicants.

Materials and methods:

all patients who request ≥1 MHS in the last semester of 2019 were included. Sociodemographic characteristics, underlying disease and reasons for request were recorded. As a comparison measure, a predetermined duration of 15 minutes per medical appointment was expected.

Results:

103 MHS applicants in 3159 scheduled appointments in 152 days. 144 MHS were performed (0.95/day). 18% requested a new one in the same interval. The average time in the preparation of a MHS was 75 minutes. The total time spent on these during the evaluated semester was equivalent to 720 potential appointments, approximately 20% of scheduled appointments that were granted. Most were issued to request chronic medications, mainly in rheumatoid arthritis and public health care.

Conclusions:

the time spent to prepare MHS for administrative reasons was comparable to a potential increase of more than 20% in medical appointments.

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