What we learned from the Doctor

Justin here. I read a great article in the WSJ this morning (here) about a movement to get more doctors to give their notes to their patients.

We have a client couple where the wife has battled through a fight with breast cancer. The husband said one of the best things about their doctor was that he would photocopy his notes after they talked and give them a copy before they left the doctor's office.  He said the transparency meant a lot to him and his wife.

We've always given some sort of recap after meetings, but it usually only involves the action points coming out ("Jim and Jane need to revisit wills.") but we didn't always send our clients the full meeting notes ("Jim and Jane need to revisit will because Jane is nervous about Jim providing too much money to his grown kids from his previous marriage.")

So, after our client told us how important it was to them in their cancer fight, we started being more intentional. While we don't copy our handwritten notes (they wouldn't be much help) we've started sending clients full recaps of the meetings. Sure, it takes some time, but we find that it adds some accountability (for us and the clients) and, like with our clients and their doctor, improves transparency. We see it as standard operating procedure.