How to keep track of an aging parent's lab results

An older parent often has a primary care doctor, a cardiologist, a kidney specialist, and a hospital stay or two, each with its own portal. Blood is drawn at the clinic one month and at a Quest or Labcorp site the next. Nobody has the whole list, and the person asked at each appointment, “Has this been going up?”, is often you.

Keeping their results in one place takes three steps: getting access, gathering the results, and keeping them as one history. The first step is the one people skip, and it matters most.

Step 1: Get access the right way

Your parent is an adult. Their results belong to them, and providers will share them with you only if your parent agrees or you have legal authority to act for them. Using their password is common, but it makes every message you send look like it came from them, and many portals’ terms forbid it. Proper access is not much harder.

Proxy access in their patient portal

Most patient portals let a patient give a family member their own login to the patient’s record. In MyChart this is called proxy access or family access. There are usually two ways to set it up:

• Your parent invites you from inside their MyChart, often under Sharing Hub or the account’s privacy or family access settings.
• You fill in a proxy form, which your parent signs, and the health system’s records team turns it on. Forms and turnaround times vary by health system; some take a week.

Each health system handles this separately, so you repeat it for each one. Your parent can usually see who has access and revoke it at any time.

The labs’ own portals

• Quest. MyQuest has a feature called MyCircle. From your own MyQuest account you can send a caregiver request to an adult who has a MyQuest account or is willing to create one. Once they accept, they appear in your circle. MyCircle also has an option for the legal guardian of an adult. (Quest: MyCircle)
• Labcorp. Each person needs their own Labcorp Patient account. If you have been authorized to view someone else’s results, they appear under Dependents in the menu. (Labcorp: patient portal FAQ)

When your parent cannot agree

If your parent can no longer make decisions, a health care power of attorney matters. Under HIPAA, a person who can make health care decisions for someone under state law is their personal representative, and providers must generally treat that person as the patient when it comes to their records. HHS says that someone holding a health care power of attorney that is in effect is the patient’s personal representative, though a power limited to one treatment covers only the records about that treatment. (HHS: health care power of attorney and access to records)

When a portal will not set up proxy access, a personal representative can still ask for copies of the record under the same right of access the patient has. See how to get all of your medical records.

Step 2: Gather the results

Make a list of everyone who has drawn blood or ordered a test in the last few years. For most people it looks like this:

• Each doctor’s practice or health system. One proxy account each, or one MyChart with the others linked. See seeing several MyChart accounts in one place.
• Hospitals and emergency visits. Inpatient labs are often in the hospital system’s portal, not the doctor’s.
• Outside labs. Quest or Labcorp, through their portals or MyCircle.
• Home measurements. Blood pressure, weight, and fingerstick glucose readings, if your parent takes them.

Then pull a copy out of each. Our download guides cover every major portal. Start with the last two or three years. Older results are useful but can wait.

Step 3: Keep one history, with the medications next to it

A folder of PDFs is a start, but it does not answer the question doctors ask most: which way is this going? For that you need each test as a series over time, with its own reference range, and the medication changes marked on it. Older adults often take several medications, and some of them are exactly why the labs are checked: kidney function before a dose is adjusted, potassium and sodium on a diuretic, A1c on a diabetes drug. Seeing a lab value move after a medication started is the kind of thing worth raising at the next visit. Did the medication actually do anything? covers how to read that carefully.

Things that make the history useful:

• Note which lab each result came from. A jump that coincides with a change of lab may be the lab, not your parent. Why lab reference ranges differ explains why.
• Write down the context. A hospital stay, an infection, or a missed dose explains a lot of odd results later.
• Keep their history separate from yours. If you track your own results too, use a separate file or profile for each person so values never mix.

Bring it to appointments

A one-page summary helps more than a stack of printouts: the latest value of each test that matters, how it has moved, the current medication list, and the questions you want answered. Doctors can read a short summary in a short visit.

Talk to your parent about it

Even with legal access, this works best as a shared project. Tell your parent what you are keeping, where, and who else can see it. Keep the file or folder protected with a password, and make sure another family member knows where it is if you are not around.

Where HealthViewer fits

HealthViewer is a lab results tracker for Mac and Windows. You can give each family member their own profile, each an encrypted file with its own password, and a single license covers every profile on your computer. Its health system connection fetches results from Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth, and eClinicalWorks portals. Whether a proxy login can authorize an app connection varies by health system; where it cannot, your parent can connect from their own login, or you can import the health summary ZIP and result PDFs you download as their proxy. It also reads Quest and Labcorp PDFs. Medications are marked on each test’s chart, and the Appointment Prep report prints changes, flagged results, and medication changes on one page for the next visit. Nothing goes to a cloud service.

For the basics of building a history, read how to track your lab results over time.