A free medical reference built for the millions of patients who leave doctor's appointments with paperwork they can't understand.
Every year, millions of Americans receive medical records, after-visit summaries, lab results, and insurance documents filled with abbreviations and clinical shorthand they've never been taught to read. A discharge summary might say the patient was admitted for "ACS with NSTEMI, Hx of HTN and DM2, managed with IV heparin and dual antiplatelet therapy, D/C on BID metoprolol and QD aspirin PRN." To a clinician, that sentence takes seconds to parse. To most patients, it's incomprehensible.
DecodeMyChart was built to close that gap — to give patients, family caregivers, students, and anyone navigating the healthcare system a fast, free, plain-English reference for the terminology that fills medical documents.
Understanding your own medical records isn't just intellectually satisfying — it enables you to ask better questions, catch errors, make more informed decisions, and participate more actively in your own care. Studies consistently show that patients who understand their diagnoses and treatment plans have better health outcomes.
Search our database of 238 medical abbreviations across 20 clinical categories. Each entry includes a plain-English definition, an example of how the term appears in a real clinical note, and links to related terms. The search is instant — results appear as you type.
For 20 of the most commonly ordered lab tests — including WBC, hemoglobin, HbA1c, TSH, creatinine, INR, LDL, HDL, and more — DecodeMyChart includes an interactive value checker. Enter the number from your lab report and instantly see a color-coded gauge showing where your value falls relative to the normal reference range, along with a plain-English explanation of what results above or below normal may mean.
The unit converter tool handles the most common medical conversions: milligrams to micrograms to grams, milliliters to teaspoons to tablespoons, Fahrenheit to Celsius, and a weight-based dosing calculator for medications dosed by body weight (useful for pediatric medications and many antibiotics).
All 238 abbreviations are organized into 20 clinical categories so you can browse by specialty:
People who have just received a diagnosis, a lab report, or a discharge summary and want to understand what they're reading before their next appointment. DecodeMyChart helps you come prepared with informed questions rather than leaving the doctor's office more confused than when you arrived.
Adult children helping aging parents navigate complex medical situations. Spouses managing a partner's chronic illness. Anyone who finds themselves suddenly responsible for understanding another person's medical care. Caregivers are often the ones reading the discharge papers, organizing the medications, and communicating with the care team — and they deserve to understand what they're reading.
Students in healthcare programs encounter a flood of clinical abbreviations in their first clinical rotations. Having a fast reference to look up unfamiliar terms during study or clinical practice is genuinely useful — and understanding the context of each term (not just its definition) accelerates clinical learning.
Healthcare administrators, medical coders, and billing professionals who work with clinical documentation benefit from quick access to abbreviation definitions when processing claims, verifying diagnoses, and communicating with clinical staff.
Medical abbreviations are drawn from standard clinical usage across American healthcare settings. Definitions are written to be accessible to non-clinicians without sacrificing accuracy. Where abbreviations have multiple possible meanings (for example, MS can mean multiple sclerosis, morphine sulfate, or mitral stenosis depending on context), the most clinically common meaning is presented with a note about context.
Lab reference ranges are based on standard adult reference intervals as published by major clinical laboratories and medical references including the National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic Laboratories, and standard clinical pathology textbooks. Reference ranges can vary between laboratories and are also affected by age, sex, pregnancy status, and other patient factors. Always refer to the reference range printed on your own lab report, and discuss your specific results with your healthcare provider.
DecodeMyChart is updated on an ongoing basis as clinical terminology evolves and as new abbreviations enter common usage.