Parenting hacks: Managing health care for the whole family

As a parent, you know that the juggle is real. You’re balancing work, kids, school, sports, activities and so much more. It’s hard to keep track of it all. It’s always great to hear about tips and short cuts that other parents have found. In this article, we’ll share some valuable hacks to make it easier to manage common health care tasks—for the whole family.

Connect to your kids’ electronic health record

With kids, you also have a shockingly large amount of paperwork. It can feel like a full-time job to keep track of school forms, sports sign-ups, summer camp registration, daycare updates, and permission slips. Fortunately, there’s an easier way when it comes to health care. Your child’s electronic health record can be a go-to place to find important information about your child’s health, including:

• health history
• vaccination records
• height, weight and growth records
• notes from previous appointments
• instructions for medications
• doctors your child has seen & clinic locations you’ve visited

Using your child’s electronic health record, it can be easy to get the information you want. Daycare needs an updated health form? Log in and get the info you need. Summer camp needs proof of immunizations? Download and share it. Sometimes, you can simply use the information directly from the health record rather than filling out the form that your school or sports league gave you to fill out.

The Allina Health account is one powerful way to do this. It combines your MyChart electronic health record with online tools and features to make health care easier, faster and more efficient. You can set up access for your child’s health record—this is called proxy access—right from your Allina Health account. Or you can complete the child proxy form and submit it.

Take advantage of online care—for your kids and yourself

Bringing kids anywhere can be an adventure, especially when they’re little. But a clinic visit can be particularly challenging. Taking time away from work or school, getting everybody in the car or on the bus, parking, entertaining your kids in the waiting room—it’s a lot. But with virtual visits, you can get high quality, personalized health care right from your smart device. And it can sometimes be less expensive than an in-person visit. What kind of care can you get virtually? More than you might expect:

Virtual visits for kids

• ear pain
• diaper rash
• ADHD/ADD
• behavioral issues
• skin conditions
• pink eye
• common illness

Virtual visits for adults

• sleep problems
• medication checks
• sinus infection
• family planning
• migraines
• urinary tract infections
• weight management

Check out a recent Healthy Set Go guide to choosing the right kind of care.

Look for on-demand virtual urgent care

When your child needs care now, but it isn’t quite an emergency, it can be agonizing to figure out whether you should care for them at home or seek medical care—especially for kids who are too young to tell you what’s wrong. That’s where on-demand virtual urgent care comes in. This option isn’t available from every health care provider, but it’s a technology that some health systems are adding to their menu of services. Virtual on-demand urgent care offers priority medical attention wherever you need it—at home, at the soccer field, at the cabin—no appointment necessary. Learn more about on-demand virtual urgent care at Allina Health.

Compare costs for care

If you’re raising kids and managing a household, you’re keeping a close eye on your money. Health care can often feel frustrating because the costs don’t seem clear. But did you know that hospitals and health systems are required to share the prices of common procedures and visits? This means you can shop around and compare.

Most health systems post their prices online, though you may need to search a little to find them. You can also call the facility to ask for pricing information. Each procedure will have a billing code, which you can use to compare costs at other providers. The Allina Health account even includes a price estimator tool, so you’ll always know what to expect when you need care.

If you’re the go-to health care organizer in your family, hacks like these can save time and stress. Explore the Allina health account and discover even more ways to manage health care quickly and conveniently.