Tips to help you benefit from your blood tests and results

Here are our top tips:

1. Be sure you understand why a given test is being ordered

Is it meant to help evaluate a symptom? Monitor a chronic condition? Assess whether a treatment is working?

You will understand your own health issues better, if you ask questions about the purpose of the blood tests your doctors are proposing.

In general, blood tests should only be ordered for a reason, such as to evaluate a concerning symptom, to monitor a chronic disease, or to check for certain types of medication side-effect.

Keep in mind that it’s only occasionally appropriate to order blood tests for “screening.” A screening test means a person doesn’t have any symptoms. Such screening blood tests are only recommended for a handful of conditions.

For more on preventive health care and screening tests that may be appropriate for older adults, see 26 Recommended Preventive Health Services for Older Adults.

2. Ask your doctor to review the results and explain what they mean for your health

Try to look at the report with your doctor. It’s especially important to ask about any result that is flagged as abnormal by the laboratory system.

For instance, I have found that many older adults are unaware of the fact that they have mild or moderate kidney dysfunction, even though this has been evident in prior laboratory tests. This happens when people do not review reports and ask enough questions.

Wondering why the doctor wouldn’t tell an older person that the kidney function is abnormal?

Well, if it’s been going on for a while, the doctor might think the older person already knows about this issue. Or perhaps the doctor mentioned it before, but the older person didn’t quite hear it. It’s also not uncommon for doctors to just not get around to mentioning a mild abnormality that is pretty common in older people, such as mild anemia or mild kidney dysfunction.

3. Ask your doctor to explain how your results compare with your prior results

Laboratory reports will always provide a “normal” reference range. But what’s usually more useful is to see how a given result compares to your previous results.

For instance, if an older person’s complete blood count (CBC) shows signs of anemia, it’s very important to look at prior CBC results. This helps us determine what the “trajectory” of the blood count is. A blood count that is drifting down — or worse yet, dropping fairly suddenly — is much more concerning than one that has been lower-than-normal, but stable for the past year. Ditto test results suggesting diminished kidney function, and for many other abnormal blood test results.

Of course, you’ll want to understand what might be the cause of an abnormal result regardless of the trajectory. But a worsening blood test result usually means the issue is more urgent to sort out.

4. Request copies of your results, and keep them in your own record system

Past laboratory results provide incredibly useful information to health providers, and can be very useful to you as well.

If you keep your own copies of results, you’ll be better able to:

  • Share them with new doctors, if you change health providers, move to a new city, or have to go to the emergency room.
  • Research your health condition, in order to better understand it and know what questions to ask your doctor.

For instance, one of my family members recently had a “routine” cholesterol panel done. He takes no medications, is quite fit, and is in good health, so he was surprised when some of his results came back higher than normal. We promptly reviewed his previous results, from three years ago, and found that those results were within normal range. So this family member is now in the process of reconsidering his diet.

If he hadn’t had copies of his previous labs, he could have asked his doctor. But it’s much faster and more convenient to be able to look in your own records!

And don’t just rely on looking up past results through a patient portal. Clinics will often remove your access, if you are deemed to have left the practice.  So it is very important to keep your own copies of results.

For more on the benefits of maintaining your own personal health record — or a health record for an older parent — see How to Use a Personal Health Record to Improve an Older Person’s Healthcare.

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