Guides
Practical guides for families navigating medical records.
These are the long-form guides we write for families who are trying to get a handle on a serious diagnosis, an aging-parent situation, or just years of scattered paperwork. Practical. No fluff. Written the way we wish someone had explained it to us when we needed it.
How to organize medical records
The step-by-step guide for getting every scan, lab, and discharge summary into one place — and keeping it current.
Published May 13, 2026
How long do doctors keep medical records?
What HIPAA actually requires, how state laws layer on top, the special rules for pediatric records, and what happens when a practice closes.
Published May 13, 2026
How to find old medical records
The practical guide for actually finding old medical records — prior providers, HIPAA's right of access, closed practices, health information exchanges, state archives.
Published May 13, 2026
What to say to someone with cancer
If you're not sure what to say to a friend, parent, sibling, or coworker who just got diagnosed — a warm, practical guide to showing up: what lands wrong, what lands right, and how to keep showing up after the news fades.
Published May 13, 2026
How to read your lab results
A plain-English guide to reading lab results — the parts of the report, what a reference range really means, the common panels decoded, and which flagged values warrant a call today versus a question at the next visit.
Published June 20, 2026
How long do test results take?
How long CT, MRI, biopsy, and blood results really take, why the timing varies so much, why you often see results in your portal before your doctor calls, and what to do while you wait — including when a quiet stretch warrants a follow-up.
Published June 22, 2026
How to read a radiology report
A plain-English guide to reading a CT, MRI, or other scan report — read the Impression first, decode the phrases that sound scarier than they are, and understand a cancer follow-up scan (stable, NED, progression, and "compared to prior").
Published June 23, 2026
How to read a pathology report
A plain-English guide to reading a biopsy or pathology report — find the diagnosis line first, decode grade, margins, lymph nodes, and stage, tell the precancerous words from the cancerous ones, and hold the base rate that most biopsies come back benign.
Published June 23, 2026
Need a guide we haven't written yet?
We publish new guides as families tell us what they were stuck on when they found KeptWell. If the situation you are in is not on this list, email hello@keptwell.org and we will write the guide.