Doctor's letter after hospital discharge

After hospitalization, ask the ward physician for a doctor's letter

04/06/2012

If patients are discharged from the clinic, they should ask the ward physician for a doctor's letter. Normally, the doctor's letter will be sent automatically to the family doctor. A copy may be helpful if the follow-up is done to multiple doctors.

In the doctor's letter the clinician informs the general practitioner about treatments, prescribed medicines and diagnoses, explained the Federal Ministry of Health in a currently presented information sheet. At the next consultation with the general practitioner or patient, patients can submit the clinical letter if no letter has been sent by the clinic to the attending physician until the appointment.

A doctor's letter can provide the physician with important data on hospitalization. It indicates, for example, which medicines were prescribed in which dosage, how the results of diagnostic examinations turned out and what further treatment on the part of the clinic is recommended.

If the patient has been administered a drug in the hospital that is also to be taken after the hospital stay, it is quite possible that the outpatient physician prescribes another agent that contains a comparable active substance or at least fulfills the same therapeutic purpose. This may be due to the decision of the doctor or to the separate contracts of the statutory health insurance companies with the individual pharmaceutical manufacturers. For this reason should be mentioned in the doctor's letter, if possible, at least one inexpensive drug that is comparable to the funds in the hospital, as it was called in the info sheet of the Ministry.

The content and scope of a discharge report can vary greatly depending on the treatment and specialty. While some reports are written by hand only briefly, other reports may cover several pages. In principle, however, doctors are required to keep the letters as short and concise as possible. (Sb)

Picture: Rainer Sturm