On this page, BHC provides tools for effective provider engagement, information on rights in employment and disability claims, and general health and wellness.
Patient Resources
ME/CFS Crash Survival Guide
While this asset addresses ME/CFS, the content and concepts can be applied to other debilitating chronic illnesses such as FM, Long COVID, and orthostatic intolerance (OI). Access it here!
Good Day/Bad Day Questionnaire
Estimating the number of better (GOOD) versus worse (BAD) days and listing specific examples communicates the range of function.
Hours of Upright Activity (HUA), or time spent with feet on the floor (sitting with feet on the floor, standing, walking) versus time spent with feet elevated in 24 hours, takes a little thinking but clearly communicates tolerance for upright activity.
Download, fill it out (it’s typable), and print for your next provider visit.
ER & Urgent Care Considerations for ME/CFS
Description: This handout provides basic advice and medical/scientific information about ME/CFS that can inform medical decisions in urgent, emergent, or hospital settings. Each page builds upon the next and has been separated for ease of review. Download it here.
Communicating with your Loved Ones
Chronic Illness: What I Want You to Know
Color Version | B&W Version
Description: This quick guide serves as a voice for the individual with a chronic illness outlining aspects of their experience that they want their loved ones to know.
Insights into My Chronic Illness
Description: Written from the perspective of an individual with chronic illness to a caregiver, friend, spouse, etc. This letter provides insight into the patient experience and how their network can support them.
Believing the Loved One
Description: Written from a therapist’s perspective, this one-page letter addresses the importance of believing and validating the loved one’s experience with chronic illness.
Communicating with your Healthcare Provider
How to Communicate Effectively with your Provider 
Description: This document addresses five common hurdles experienced by patients and medical providers. Get our tips and solutions on how to overcome them. We aim to help you get the most out of your time with your medical team. (October 2019)
Created by: Joyce Ferrone, FNP-BC, BHC Nurse Practitioner
Pre-visit Health Assessment
Description: This is a printable PDF that you can fill out prior to your medical visit. It serves as a condensed “snapshot” of your current wellness presentation and gives your medical team important information that will streamline your visit. (May 2020)
Overcoming Barriers to Access Care video 
Description: Dr. Bateman shares her insights, tools and tips for communicating with your medical team about your complex chronic illness.(October 2019)
Presented by: Lucinda Bateman, MD, BHC Founder and Medical Director of BHC
Accommodations
Accommodation and Compliance: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 
Description: A general guide for work accommodations that can support an employee with ME/CFS and FM.
Presented by: Job Accommodation Network (JAN)
Your Employment Rights as an Employee with a Disability 
Description: A guidance website outlining coverage and requirements of equal protection under the Americans with Disability Act.
Presented by: US Equal Opportunity Commission
Long COVID
Applying for Disability
How to Navigate Disability with ME/CFS
Presentation slides
Description: This recorded webinar features legal and medical experts at they share their advice on applying, appealing, and documenting a case for disability insurance for ME/CFS. (April 2020)
Presented by: Solve ME/CFS and Bateman Horne Center
Disability and ME – CFS
Description: This is a rich resource guide aimed at both patients and medical providers.
Presented by: Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
The Massachusetts CFIDS/ME & FM Disability Handbook
Description: This information booklet is an extensive guide for those with ME/CFS and FM. Please be advised that this information was last updated on November 2015 and some of the information such as income limitations may have been updated. (November 2015)
Presented by: Massachusetts ME/CFS & FM Association
Long COVID
Workers with Long COVID-19: You May Be Entitled to Workplace Accommodations Dep of Labor July 2021 blog
Quality of Life Resources
Practicing Body Gratitude with Chronic Illness
Description: Meredith Mehner, LCSW, shares how to repair and nourish your relationship with your body while living with a complex chronic illness.
This presentation includes five self-guided questions for viewers to practice in their own time and within their own energy envelopes. (November 2020)
Presented by: BHC and Meredith Mehner, LCSW
Full video: 20 minutes
Video of guided questions (only): 8 minutes
The Psychology of Chronic Illness: Making it Normal
Description: A 6-part series reviewing and validating the psychological and social aspects of chronic illness. (March 2020)
Presented by: Timothy Weymann, LCSW, and BHC
Insights for Living Well with a Chronic Illness
Description: Linda Milne is a member of the BHC community who has navigated living with chronic illness while creating a fulfilling life. She moderates a panel discussion on living a life of quality, while living with ME/CFS and fibromyalgia. (November 2019)
Presented by: Linda Milne, Former BHC Board Member, and BHC
ME/CFS & Fibromyalgia Self-Help
Description: A rich website with an online supportive program to learn and implement pacing techniques.
Presented by: Bruce Campbell, PhD
The Patient Voice
Description: Recently, a group of some of the leading ME/CFS researchers in the world were in a meeting and they did not understand what brain fog meant. All of the explanations online are, as far as I know, a few sentences and pretty vague. So I wrote this for these researchers, and I hope you can use it to help explain ME/CFS and your symptoms to loved ones, friends, caregivers and doctors. You can download this in a .pdf file to print it out and take it anywhere or show anyone. You have my full permission to use it in any way that is helpful. (Feb. 2023)
Presented by: Whitney Dafoe
General Resources
ME/CFS and FM Treatment Advice
Description: This guide is intended to help patients explore treatment and management ideas with their healthcare team. (February 2016)
Presented by: BHC
Introduction to PEM (Post Exertional Malaise)
Description: This introduction to PEM provides insight into the debilitating nature of ME/CFS. (April 2020)
Presented by: Norwegian ME Association – Rogaland County with professional support from psychologist Ketil Jakobsen and pediatric neurologist Kristian Sommerfelt.
Beyond Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Redefining an Illness
Description: Dr. Bateman and her co-committee members propose new diagnostic criteria that can be used in the real world by medical professionals so that patients can be diagnosed and receive much-needed treatment. This link provides free access to the full report, report brief, ME/CFS Clinicians Guide, Key Facts, Report Guide for Clinicians. (2015)
Presented by: The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Primer for Clinical Practitioners
Description: Provides information necessary for medical providers to understand, diagnose, and manage the symptoms of ME/CFS. (2014)
Presented by: IACFSME (International Association for CFS and ME)
Centers for Disease Control ME/CFS
Description: Resources and information developed by the CDC.
Presented by: CDC
Films
“Left Out”: An ME/CFS Movie of Commitment, Hope and Despair – Health Rising
Description: “Left Out” follows the ME/CFS community in Norway as they participate in and await the results of the Rituximab trial. (January 2020)
Presented by: Jonathan Borge Lie, UpNorth Film
Description: Jennifer Brea is about to marry the love of her life when she is struck down by a fever that leaves her bedridden. When doctors tell her “it’s all in her head,” she turns her camera on herself and her community as she looks for answers and fights for a cure. (2017)
Presented by: Jennifer Brea and Shella Films
Description: A journalist afflicted with ME/CFS embarks on a quest to find out why the medical system has neglected his disease and left millions sidelined from life. (2015)
Presented by: Ryan Prior
Lucinda Bateman, MD, is a renowned clinician, researcher, and educator. Her Johns Hopkins University Medical School training instilled an approach to care that she has employed throughout her career - the patient comes first and the unknown or unexplained does not equate to a lack of proper and compassionate care. Since starting her own practice in 2000, she has served on six boards or committees, been the principal investigator for 45 studies, authored/coauthored 40 journal articles, served as adjunct instructor and adjunct assistant professor in the University of Utah Departments of Preventative Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Anesthesiology, and lectured around the world.