I worked with a client on her papers for about 2 hours yesterday.  She and I have worked on various projects over the years, paper is the most recent.  She, like most of my clients, is an organized person.  Life has gotten in the way of maintenance along the way, though, and now is the time to catch up.

     She has this snazzy rolling file holder, open on top, which has been a great tool for her to use.  The portability and ease of use are both big plusses.  She has been using a Pre-Packaged paper system that is lovely and color coded and preprinted, and unfortunately, no longer useful to her.  The pre-packaged folder ” Medical Insurance” was lumped into Insurance, “Medical Records” was lumped with action folders, “Health and Fitness” was all the way at the back of the drawer in lifestyle, and “Medical Bills” were not in with Bills To Pay, so they may get forgotten.  There were no folders for “Resources” or “Dental”, so those items were floating around the house.    

     This system had Medical Information in too many places in the hanging folders.   And it was difficult to remember the rationale for all  the different places.  So we created our own Medical category.  We broke it down into 3 subcategoies: 

• “Medical: Current”  This contained manilla folders with information on current conditions, current medication lists and allergy information, current supplements and nutrition information and pending insurance issues.
• “Medical: Paid Bills and Statements”  This held manilla folders titled “Blue Cross Blue Shield Statements”, “Medicare Statements” and “Paid Bills” for information for 2010 medical issues (we purged and shred all the old stuff)
• “Medical: History”  This hanging folder contained pertinent ” Test and Lab Reports”, and “pertinent” was determined by my client.  Old lab results for routine issues were tossed, but some info was kept, regardless of how old it was, for baseline purposes.  In addition, discharge instructions for past surgeries, physician contact information, etc. was kept in this folder.

     Breaking down the information into subcategories that were useful for my client was the best thing we could have done.  It helped her to realize what sorts of information she needs to purge and what she needs to keep, and all her information is current and well labeled for her and her family to use.

    We also hung all the Medical Info at the front of the drawer because these issues are very important to this client this week.   We can move them if and when we choose.     So, why am I telling you this?  To sum up:

• Put some thought into your paper management system, make it useful to you.
• “Personal, “Portable” and “Easy to Access” are important attributes for your paper management system.
• Realize what is most important to you, keep that info close at hand and 
• Purge and Shred your old papers.
• Decide for yourself what you want to call a file.  There is no need for a prepackaged solution if you don’t find it useful.
• Divide your categories, if you would like.  Active, Passive and Archival (history) is a great place to start!