Prompts from the book to paste into a chatbot. The first sets one up to organise your care; the rest do one job each.
Before you paste. A chatbot service isn't covered by the health-privacy law that binds your doctor and your plan, and what you type may be stored, read by staff, or used for training unless a setting says otherwise. Read the setting. For every prompt except the first, remove your name, date of birth, account numbers and address. Ask the machine to organise, translate and list questions, not to decide, and check any number it gives against the source it names. None of this replaces your doctor, and nothing here should delay care in an emergency.
When Once, then whenever something changes. Paste into a chatbot that can use your email and calendar. It needs your real details, so use it only with a service whose privacy and training settings you've read. It drafts; you send.
Act as the organiser of my health care. Work through the seven steps below in order, one at a time. Ask before you send anything or put anything on my calendar. Never guess a fact about my health: ask me, or mark it [unknown]. You are not my doctor, so don't diagnose, and don't tell me to start, stop or change a treatment. If anything I tell you sounds urgent, tell me to call my doctor or 911 before we go on.
1. Interview me, a few questions at a time, for: each condition and the year it was diagnosed; every medicine and supplement, with dose and who prescribed it; each allergy and what happened; the doctors, dentists, therapists and pharmacies I use, with phone numbers and patient portals; the hospital I'd choose; my insurance (the plan's name and type, who administers it, member ID, plan year, deductible and out-of-pocket maximum, and where the plan documents are); my health-care proxy, and whether I've signed a directive and an authorization; and recent results worth keeping. Then write my one-page health file from the answers.
2. Put it where I can find it from any phone. Save email drafts to myself, each with a subject line that starts with a tag nobody else uses, and the same tag in the body, so one search finds it: health-info for the health file; rx-info for the medicine list, with dose, prescriber, pharmacy and start date; ins-info for the insurance details and how to reach the plan; care-team for the doctors and portals; and records-log for a running list of every request I've sent and when each answer is due. When something changes, save a new version with the date in the subject rather than editing the old one.
3. Get my records. For each doctor and hospital on my list, draft a request for my complete records under the HIPAA right of access, 45 C.F.R. § 164.524, in electronic form, with the answer due within thirty days. Draft one more to my health plan for my claims history for the last [three] years. Show me each draft before anything is sent. Log each in records-log with its due date, and put a follow-up on my calendar for that date.
4. Check my network. From my plan's name and type, tell me where its provider directory is, and write me a short script for calling each doctor's office to confirm that they're in network for my plan this year and taking new patients. Directories are often wrong, so the call is the answer: log it in care-team with the date and the name of the person I spoke to.
5. Look for conflicts. If you can search the web, look up each doctor who has recommended a test, device, drug or operation for me in the federal Open Payments database (openpaymentsdata.cms.gov), and report payments by company, year and type, with a link for each. Note any public record that the doctor has a stake in a facility, laboratory or imaging centre they've sent me to. Keep 'no record found' separate from 'no interest,' and draw no conclusion about the doctor.
6. Keep it current. Put on my calendar, recurring: every January, download my results from each portal and update health-info; whenever a medicine changes, update rx-info the same day; before each open enrollment, re-check the network for every doctor on care-team and price my prescriptions; and every year on my birthday, confirm that my proxy and directive are current and that my proxy can find health-info. Add a one-line note to each event saying what it's for.
7. When you've finished, list what you've made, what's waiting on someone else and when it's due, and every assumption I should check.
When A bill or benefits statement arrives. Paste into a chatbot, identifiers removed. Remove your name, date of birth, account numbers and address first, and check what comes back against the document itself.
Here is a medical billing statement with my identifying details removed. Explain each line in plain English: what the service was, what was charged, what the insurer allowed, what I'm being asked to pay and why. Flag any line that looks duplicated, any code that doesn't match a described service, and anything I should ask the billing office about. Do not tell me whether to pay.
When A denial letter arrives. Paste into a chatbot, identifiers removed. Remove your name, date of birth, account numbers and address first, and check what comes back against the document itself.
Here is an insurance denial letter, identifiers removed. Tell me the stated reason, the clinical criteria it cites if any, the deadline to appeal, and where it says I can request the claim file and the reviewer's credentials. Then draft the letter requesting the file, the criteria, and the reviewer's name and specialty. Do not draft the appeal itself yet.
When You're handed a discharge summary. Paste into a chatbot, identifiers removed. Remove your name, date of birth, account numbers and address first, and check what comes back against the document itself.
Here is a hospital discharge summary, identifiers removed. List every medication it says I should take, with dose and timing, and every medication it says to stop. List every follow-up appointment and test, with who is supposed to arrange it. List the warning signs it says should bring me back. Tell me anything in it that is unclear or contradictory.
When Once, and before a new doctor or an insurance application. Paste into a chatbot, identifiers removed. Remove your name, date of birth, account numbers and address first, and check what comes back against the document itself.
Draft a letter to my health plan asking, under the HIPAA right of access, 45 C.F.R. § 164.524, for my complete claims history from [date] to today, in electronic form: for each claim, the date of service, the provider's name and NPI, the diagnosis and procedure codes, the amounts billed, allowed and paid, my share, and any denial with its reason. Ask for the plan's written response within thirty days. When I paste the file back, with identifiers removed, turn it into a table by provider and date, list every provider so I can request their records, and flag any diagnosis code I might not recognise.
When Once a year, or before applying for life, disability or long-term-care insurance. Paste into a chatbot, identifiers removed. Remove your name, date of birth, account numbers and address first, and check what comes back against the document itself.
Here are my problem list, my allergy list, and the diagnosis codes from my claims, identifiers removed. Sort each item into: confirmed and current; confirmed but resolved; suspected or ruled out; doesn't match anything I remember; possibly wrong. For each item outside the first group, draft one sentence asking my doctor to correct its status (resolved, with the year; ruled out, with the date; a side effect rather than an allergy). Don't suggest removing anything true: my doctors need it, and I only want the record to be accurate.
When Once, and again when the household changes. Paste into a chatbot that can set calendar events.
I was born in [month, year]. My children were born in [month, year] and [month, year]. My coverage is [employer plan / marketplace plan / Medicaid / Medicare], and the plan year starts in [month]. Put on my calendar, with a reminder a month ahead, every date on which our coverage is expected to change: each open-enrollment window; the day my plan's deductible and out-of-pocket maximum reset; each child's twenty-sixth birthday and the sixty-day window after it to enrol elsewhere; the change in what I can see in each child's patient portal around age twelve or thirteen, and the forms each child should sign at eighteen; my Medicare initial enrollment period, which opens three months before the month I turn sixty-five; if I have a health savings account, a reminder to stop contributions before I enrol in Medicare; the six months after my Medicare Part B starts, when a supplement can't turn me down; and Medicare's open enrollment each fall. Tell me which dates you assumed and which I should confirm.
Standing reminders for records, bills and enrollment
When Once. Paste into a chatbot that can set calendar events.
Set these reminders, recurring. Every January: download my records and results from each patient portal, and update my one-page health file. Every month: check the explanations of benefits against any bills, and don't pay a bill until its explanation of benefits has arrived. Before each open enrollment: check that my doctors and hospital are in next year's network, price my prescriptions three ways, and look up the financial-assistance policy of the hospital I'd use. Every year on my birthday: confirm my health-care proxy and authorization forms are current, and that my proxy knows where they are. Each time you set one, add a one-line note saying why it matters.
The screenings and vaccines that apply to your family
When Once, and yearly. Paste into a chatbot that can set calendar events.
I'm a [age]-year-old [sex], and my children are [ages and sexes]. From the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations graded A or B, and the CDC immunization schedules for adults and children, list the screenings and vaccines that apply to each of us, with how often. Leave out anything graded C, D or I, and anything recommended only for risk factors I haven't told you about; list those separately as questions for our doctor. Put each on the calendar at its interval, and note which are covered without cost-sharing as preventive care.
When Once, as a standing instruction. Paste into the chatbot's custom instructions or memory.
Standing instruction: on the first of each month, ask me how much I've paid toward this year's deductible and out-of-pocket maximum, from my plan's portal. When I'm within reach of the maximum, or have met it, list the care I've been putting off that my plan covers (a procedure, a scan, physical therapy, a new pair of glasses if they're covered, a specialist visit) and remind me how far ahead each must be booked, so it happens before the reset on [date]. Starting three months before the reset, remind me every two weeks.
When Once, as a standing instruction. Paste into the chatbot's custom instructions or memory.
If I don't have a primary-care doctor, remind me every month until I do, and help me find one in my network who is taking new patients. Once I have one, remind me to see them at least once a year, and never let three years pass, since many practices then treat you as a new patient again. Standing instruction: whenever I mention a new diagnosis, a visit to a specialist, an emergency room or urgent-care visit, a hospital stay, a new or stopped medicine, or a symptom that has lasted more than two weeks, remind me to send my primary-care doctor a short portal message saying what happened and asking whether they need to see me, and draft it for me.
When When a test, scan or operation is offered. Paste into a chatbot, identifiers removed. Remove your name, date of birth, account numbers and address first, and check what comes back against the document itself.
I've been offered [the test, scan or operation] because of [the diagnosis, its stage or grade, or the reason it was offered]. I'm [age and sex], with [other conditions, earlier results, family history]. Using the best published figures, picture two groups of 100 people who match me as closely as the evidence allows: one group has it and one doesn't. Show them side by side in a table, one row per outcome, over [five or ten] years: how many are helped and how; how many die of this condition; how many die of anything; how many get a false alarm; how many are treated for something that would never have harmed them; and how many have each common complication or side effect. If a positive result leads to a further test or treatment, add a column for that next step. Then add rows for what each path involves: the preparation, the pain, the recovery time, the time off work, and my likely cost under a [plan type] with a [deductible] deductible and a [maximum] out-of-pocket maximum. For every figure, name the study or guideline, its year, and the people it studied, and say how closely they match me. Where there's no good figure, say so rather than estimate. Don't tell me what to choose. End with the questions I should ask my doctor to fill the gaps.
When When a test, device, drug or operation is recommended. Paste into a chatbot that can search the web.
Dr. [name], a [specialty] in [city and state], has recommended [the test, device, drug or operation], to be done at [the facility, lab or centre]. Search public sources and report what you find, with a link for each item. First, the federal Open Payments database (openpaymentsdata.cms.gov): payments to this doctor from the maker of [the device or drug] and from its competitors, by year and type (royalties, consulting, speaking, travel, meals, research), and any ownership or investment interest the companies reported. Second, patents that name this doctor as an inventor. Third, whether this doctor or their practice owns or has a stake in [the facility], a laboratory, an imaging centre, a surgery centre or a physician-owned hospital: check the facility's website, state business-entity registries, and Medicare's published ownership data. Fourth, conflict-of-interest statements in this doctor's articles, talks or trial registrations about this treatment. Keep 'no record found' separate from 'no interest.' Report only what the sources say, and draw no conclusions about the doctor.