What to put in a family medical binder

Give each person one page with eight things on it: date of birth, allergies and what happens, current medications with the dose and how often, conditions in your own words, doctors and pharmacy with phone numbers, insurance member and group numbers, vaccine names and dates, and who to call. Print it or keep it where you can open it fast.

This is for anyone who ends up answering health questions for a household: kids, a partner, a parent. It can't tell you what any entry means or what anyone should do about it, and it doesn't replace the paperwork a clinic, school or camp gives you. It's paperwork help, not medical advice.

An example: one filled page

Say Amina is eight and you've been handed a clipboard at a new dentist. This is the page you'd want in your bag. Every name, number and date here is made up for the example.

Why one page per person

Keep each person on their own page, with the same eight headings every time. Adults and children are the same kind of record. When two people share a page, the wrong allergy ends up on the wrong form, and it happens at exactly the moment you're rushing.

Same headings also means you always know where to look. If you're also looking after a parent, one place for a parent and kids shows how to run both generations the same way.

Filling in the answers you don't have

Most pages get filled in over a week, not in one sitting. Here's the order that takes the least effort.

1. Start with what's in your wallet: the insurance card gives you the insurer, the member ID and the group number. Copy it exactly, letters and zeros included.
2. Pull the medicine names from the labels, not from memory. Write the name, the dose as printed, and how often. Include over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and supplements, because MedlinePlus lists them among the things to have written down before a visit. The medication list guide covers the details.
3. Ask the doctor's office and the pharmacy for their phone numbers if you don't have them saved, and write down which one is which.
4. For vaccines, ask the clinic that gave them for a copy of the record, then type the names and dates in as written. If a clinic is gone, the CDC says it doesn't hold vaccination records itself, and points you to your state's immunization information system, your provider or your state health department.
5. Add allergies last, and add what happens as well as what they're allergic to. "Peanuts" is a fact. "Peanuts (hives)" is something a sitter can use.
6. Choose who to call in an emergency, ask them, and put their number down. A name with no number isn't much help at 2 a.m.

What belongs in a paper folder instead

A binder page is a list of answers. It isn't the place for test results, scanned insurance cards, discharge papers or signed forms. Those live better in a paper folder or in the clinic's own portal, and you copy the answers out of them onto the page.

Advance directives and the question of who speaks for you if you can't are a different job with its own paperwork. Who would speak for you about medical care covers choosing that person and noting where the documents are kept. Rules vary by state.

Paper binder or a screen

Both work. They fail in different ways.

Keeping it current

A page goes stale in a few predictable places. Update it at these moments and it stays useful.

1. After any visit

   Add what changed: a new medicine, a stopped one, a new allergy.

2. When a medicine starts or stops

   Change the line the same day, while the label is in your hand. Keep the stop date.

3. Each August and each spring

   Check dates of birth, insurance and phone numbers before school and camp forms arrive.

4. When insurance changes

   Replace the member and group numbers. An old card is worse than none.

5. Before a sitter or a trip

   Reprint the pages you're handing over, and leave off what they don't need.

What goes wrong with these pages

• A stopped medicine stays on the page. Someone reads it as current. Mark the stop date or take it off.
• Insurance is last year's. Forms get refused or the wrong ID gets copied over.
• Vaccine dates were typed from memory. Copy them from the record, or leave the line and ask for one.
• The full page goes everywhere. A sitter doesn't need your insurance ID, and a school doesn't need every note. What to leave off a page you hand over has the rule of thumb.
• Nobody knows the page exists. Tell the one other adult where it lives.

Questions people ask

Family Health Binder is the version of this page that you type in once. Each person gets a card with allergies, conditions, medications, vaccines, doctors, insurance and an emergency contact, and it prints from that card as a forms sheet, a caregiver sheet, an emergency card, a visit page and an intake summary. Anything you mark private stays in the app and is left off every printed page. It only records what you enter: it doesn't check a dose, say what's due or send a reminder, and it holds no documents, so the paper folder stays.