What to Say to a doctor regarding AAS?

[JohnSours]

TweetI have a Doctor's appointment coming soon and i want to get my blood tested before i start my 16 week cycle. I have never met this doctor before. And my Insurance company is the one that has it's own facilities and doctors that work directly under the insurance company.
I would like to know whether it is ok to tell him that i am an AAS user, about my previous cycles and about my future ones?

I know that there is a doctor patient confidentiality and that there is HIPA now too. But i don't want her writing stuff down into my permanent medical records. Or my insurance company finding out and what not.
Good people have told me it's fine but i just want to confirm with you guys as well.
So in short how safe is it to tell a doctor about ones usage?

Thanks.

[Dzone]

Tweetwas in a class this weekend and was told about electronic medical records and how when you sign up for insurance, you sign over to them your rights to your medical records. They can request your records from the past and get them electronically. you dont know this doctor from adam and if he is the typical narrow minded MD, he got his information about AAS from the news media. are you certain he isnt going to type something in your records after you leave? Also, by 2013, there will no longer be paper medical records. Paper will not be allowed. Lets say that in 2010 you change to anew insurance company. They will look into your records to see if you have any pre=existing conditions..they may see AAS in a doctors note and red flag your ass. Sure there is hippa, but once you sign that paper to release records, they can request records all the way back to when you were a kid. Be careful what you say, unless you know he's cool.
If you dont know for sure,Try to educate yourself as best you can and try to decipher your own blood lab results. Most good labs print a nice profile that shows you normal ranges and abnormal ranges. Then compare pre vs post cycle blood.

[FUZO]

Tweetyou tell your doc to run a complete cbc,thyroid panel and have her check your free testosterone lever and lh and fsh level.tell her your pecker hasnt been working to well and you hacvent been feeling well they will give you these tests.you must be demanding to have them run the tests.but as for letting your doc know about gear usage you should. you can tell her not to write this down and its a patient client privlige thing

[pigmeat]

Tweetjust discuss it with him/her off the record

[JohnSours]

TweetThank you very much, will do!

[Doink the clown]

TweetI agree with what Foolzo wrote above,and when this issue comes up with me i tell them "look,i have done 35-40 cycles,ranging from 4 to 30 weeks, so if you know more than me pahleese speak up." "It's your job to help me,not judge me".
The problem with you is your 21 years old, so the whole pecker not working may be a bit slim,just tell them i want to talk to you bout something and i dont want it written down.

[bionic redneck]

Tweeti would tell ur doc.. i told mine and he told me if i wanted a check up or bloodwork that he would do it because its in my best interests to make sure that everything was going as it should... he/she cant tell anyone else, its called HEPA laws... so ur cool..

[TXShooter]

TweetI work in the insurance industry and I really don't think there is much for you to worry about if you are on a group plan (get your insurance through your employer). It is up to your doctor wether or not to put the info in the record. The insurance company typically does not get your actual charts until you have some kind of extensive condition that requires extensive treatment (surgeries, Rx, etc). But for routine checkups, they just see the invoices, not the Doctor notes.

They cannot drop you from the coverage (again talking about group plans). The most that could potentially happen is if there is some kind of complication directly related to your use (say a really bad infection requiring hospitalization) they can deny the charges for that particular episode. But I am not even sure how much that could be pursued. Something I should definitely research . . . maybe tomorrow at the office.

[deepsouth]

TweetTXShooter- thanks for that info- and I look forward to the hearing what you find out

[TXShooter]

TweetSo I looked into a few contracts of our clients and talked it over with some people in the office. There's is not any language in the contracts that could deny you the charges. I am not saying that this is absolute, I'm sure there are a couple out there. But my colleagues all agreed that exclusionary language such as this in an employer's medical plan would be very rare and hard to find. How else is someone who OD's going to be covered?

The exclusionary language I was thinking of in my previous post relates to Life & Disability insurance contracts. So as I stated before ... from the medical insurance perspective (again group plans, not individual... I don't handle those kinds of contracts and can't claim any knowledge there) you are ok with admitting steroid use. There should not be any repercussions of being dropped from insurance or denied coverage. And also again, it is highly unlikely that the insurance company would even see reference to it.