Hello! The other day when visiting my endocrinologist, she had trouble viewing my Dexcom numbers and straight up asked me for my login info. This brings me to my question: what challenges do endos face when it comes to helping patients and doing their jobs? I’m truly curious! It would also be great if i can talk to someone directly!
Hello @Lilianc and welcome to our self-help forum. We are not professionals here, we have type 1 diabetes or care for someone who has type 1 diabetes. We help each other by sharing our experiences I don’t know of any endocrinologist participating here on the forum, but maybe there is. I suppose if you asked my Endo she would say the biggest challenges are in the relationships. Type 1 is one of the only self managed diseases where I have to make 99.9% of the medical decisions every day. So my relationship with my Endo is more of a colleague or peer to peer relationship because I don’t need any acute help.
I just switched endos and they also use the patient’s login info to access clarity/Glooko/etc. This hospital has been having tech issues.
Other tech issues- switching patients who move from a different country. They often come with different devices and different pump settings.
I’m also not an endocrinologist 
This could be either a side note or am answer to your question, but…
I’m reluctant to give my login info to anyone - even a trusted doctor - although I have provided my endo’s office with that in the past. There are ways to share your data with them: Glooko has a “pro-connect feature” whereby an office using that software provides a code to the patient, allowing the office to look at the data as needed.
Likewise, Dexcom Clarity let’s providers see patient readings - as with Glooko the office provides the patient with a coffee to use to link their office with the patient’s data. With either system I imagine the data for all patient’s is accessible under one login.
The practice manager at my endo’s office handles those things, but physicians should know who to see in their office if they have trouble logging in. Come to think of it that did happen at my endo appointment a few visits ago. A quick call to the practice manager had things back in place. So to answer your question(?) part of the issue may be remembering who to see if they find themselves locked out. Waking a patient to log in is one thing - asking for their login details is another.
I read an article recently that physicians in general are spending a lot of time - in some case personal - answering messages sent to patient portals, and are starting(?) to charge. I’m not really “a phone person” and am a visual learner, so I think nothing of dashing a message to my endo if have a question. Apparently that is more burdensome than I imagined.
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@Lilianc Welcome Lilian to this TypeOneNation Community Forum.
Quite similar to @Joe, I have a peer-to-peer or collaborative relationship with the endocrinologist with whom I consult and I bring to our sessions printouts of matters I feel necessary.
It is actually a very simple process for you to grant your professional consultant complete access to your Dexcom Clarity data without you sharing your login data - if your doctor has a Clarity Professional account. A brief guide:
Log on to Dexcom Clarity, clarity.dexcom.com
Two options appear, one for patient and one for provider. Your doctor needs a provider account.
When you are in YOUR Clarity account with all your data, click on “Settings” - at the very bottom of this page is “Data Sharing with Clinic” - open this
A window like this appears
Enter the code given to you by your doctor. You may need to educate your doctor about tis feature. as the doctor or clinic will need to provide you with its 12 digit identification code.
My endo is usually fairly tech savvy, but her office keeps having trouble. They asked me for my login information, as well. I was shocked, but they said they do that with all their patients as a matter of course. I changed the password to something I was willing to share. I figure they’re getting my data either way. But I do wish they handled it differently, with more of an eye towards patient privacy and general data security.
There was one occasion when my practice manager herself (also a medical professional whom I saw from time to time) wasn’t able to log into the office account, and she asked if would log in personally to mine so she could see my records. That I was willing to do, but I logged out when she was done.
I’m not sure if taking the patient’s login info is a violation of HIPAA or not. A very quick initial check led me to Hipaa journal dot com (portions copied below) where I found recommendations about colleagues sharing their own login information but nothing about using the patient’s.
If an office has continued problems accessing their own information I think I would just log in myself when I get there, or take printouts.
# HIPAA Password Sharing Policy
A HIPAA password sharing policy should prohibit Covered Entities, Business Associates, and employees from sharing passwords that provide access to electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI). There is also a good case for prohibiting caregivers from accessing patient portals with shared passwords.
In 2017, a survey of healthcare professionalsfound that 73% of respondents had used a colleague´s login credentials to access medical data. While the majority of respondents were students or interns who had not yet been given their own login credentials, the fact that a colleague had provided the credentials demonstrates poor password security.