Make a Special Needs Children Medical Binder

Special needs children need different care from other children.  Sometimes this care can get overwhelming for the parents involved.  Many times there are multiple doctors visit within the same week, specialists to see, physical therapy or maybe occupational therapy.  All this multiple visits can be very overwhelming for the parents of special needs children.  I highly recommend putting together a medical record organizer or medical binder.  This binder will hold your child's medical information.  This binder will also hold information on medicines your child is taking, communications that you have with the doctors and milestones that your child has reached.  This binder is important so you have the information on hands when you visit your child's doctor.

Decide what all you are going to need in your medical record organizer.  Write the categories on the tabs of the tabbed page dividers.  Find pages to meet your needs for your binder.  Don't forget to decorate the front of the binder.

Add a monthly calendar.  A medical record organizer for special needs children needs to have a calendar.  This monthly calendar is not only for writing down future appointments, but it can also be a place to jot milestones and other things you observe so went talking to the doctor you can tell them the date it happened.  Remember if you have to change the date of an appointment make sure you erase it from the calendar and write in the new one.  You may at some point need an accurate date of when something happened later, so keep you calendar current in your medical record organizer.

Add a contact list.  With special needs children, you have many phone calls to doctors and therapists.  Often you are told to call back in a few days or they will tell you they will call you in a few days and then they don't.  Have a place in your medical record organizer, that you can list phone calls and other forms of contact.  Make sure you note if you are suppose to call them back or if they say they will call you.  When you are dealing with multiple doctors, it is hard to remember all the contacts, this keeps it organized for you.

Add a telephone list.  Special needs children many times have lots of doctors that the parents have to deal with.  Sometimes the doctors even need to be able to communicate with each other.  Having a list of the phone numbers in your medical record organizer can help you have the phone numbers handy when you need them.

Add a medicine list. Pretty much every time special needs children go to the doctor, the parents are asked what medicines their child is taking.  It is a crucial part of the child's treatment to have that list.  Keep the list in your child's medical record organizer and you will have it handy.

Add a list of milestones.  Doctors of special needs children ask over and over when your child did what.  This information can be very import to the doctor, so make a list.  Write down when your child rolled over, smiled, sat up, crawled, pulled up, walked, talked and anything else you can think of.  Also write down when you first started noticing problems with your child.  Keep this information handy in your medical record organizer.

Add a list of instructions.  Doctors of special needs children give lots of instructions.  You need a place to write this information down, so when you get home, you can remember what you are to do.  It's really frustrating to get home from a physical therapy session and forget how to do your child's exercises with them.  If the information is in your medical record organizer, then you won't forget.

Add anything else you may need for your child's particle condition.  Sometimes there are special things about your child's condition that you need to keep.  Make the medical record organizer usable for your family.

Print out the pages you need.  Make sure you look through all the resources before you decide what you need.  Three hole punch the pages and put them in their correct categories behind the tabbed divider pages.  Write in the information for you child (if you were not able to type it in before you printed).  Carry this binder with you when you go to appointments for your child.

Be very careful with this binder.  It has a lot of personal information in it about your child and your family, do not loose it or leave it unattended where someone could steal the information.

Check the resources below.  I have included resources of pages you can print out for your child's binder.  You might want to look around on the page for related articles.

Resources and Printable Pages-

Care Notebook Printable Pages

Medical Home Info Printable Pages

More Printable Pages

Binder Pages

Care Notebook Printable Pages

Medical Notebook Pages (scroll down)

More Binder Pages Printables

Care Notebook Pages