The Master: The Report of Findings for Chiropractic
Typically, any healthcare provider you go to see will give you a report of findings (ROF) after they have performed an examination on your condition. Sadly, however, some doctors do not provide their patients with a ROF, which could be a bad start to a doctor patient relationship. For today’s blog, we will discuss what and how important a ROF is and how we do our report of findings for chiropractic in the office.
What is a Report of Findings?
An ROF is information provided to the patient by the doctor showing the results of all the tests and diagnostic studies that was performed to help formulate a diagnosis for the patient’s condition. Typically, an ROF takes anywhere between 15-30 minutes depending on the doctor and the severity of the condition that is done usually very next day because it will give the doctor enough time to thoroughly go over all of the findings from the examination to assure they have an accurate diagnosis for the patient.
What is the Importance of a Report of Findings?
The most important thing first off, is to build a strong connection between doctor-patient communication. Proper communication about every aspect to a patient’s condition will assure the patient that they are fully confident that their care is in the doctors hands. The other important thing is make sure the doctor spends an adequate amount of time going over the results of the examination. A lot of doctors won’t even give an ROF or will barely spend time on it, which could give an inaccurate diagnosis for a patient’s condition. The importance of a ROF is to educate the patient on their condition and explain why they are experiencing the symptoms they present with. They want to know if the doctor can help them and how long it will take. An ROF will provide a treatment plan designed for each patient explaining what they are going to do, why it will help and how long it will take to correct the problem.
Report of Findings in Our Office
In our office for a report of finding for chiropractic, we sit the patient down in the consultation room and spend about 20-30 minutes going over not only over all of the examination findings, but we also explain to each patient the condition that we diagnose them with and why we gave them the treatment plan that we believe will give them their health back. We explain to them that our goal is to get you out of pain, but the ultimate goal is to provide them HEALTH. We explain to each patient that it is just like seeing the family practitioner. You may leave the office with no adjustment sometimes but you’re still coming in to get a check up because we want to check up on your HEALTH! We make it aware to each patient that we will do everything it takes to get you better. If we can’t help you we WILL find someone that can help! We do a thorough report of findings for chiropractic because most of our patients that have seen other doctors have been told nothing of their condition. At our office, we want you to be a part of the solution, so we educate you on your problem. Doctor patient communication is essential and is absolutely necessary to give patients the best care possible!