A Simple Question at Your Doctor’s Visit Could Help Millions of Women With Bladder Leakage

Bladder leakage — also called urinary incontinence — affects somewhere between 30% and 70% of women, and nearly half of all women will experience it in their lifetime. Yet only about half ever mention it to their doctor. Many feel embarrassed, and many don’t know that effective treatments exist.

Researchers at Northwestern Medicine tested a simple fix: before women came in for their annual checkup at one of 43 primary care clinics, they received an automated message through their patient portal asking a single screening question about bladder leakage.

If they answered yes and wanted to learn more, they were sent a link to an online educational tool that explained the different types of incontinence (stress, urgency, or mixed) in plain language with simple diagrams. The tool also let women indicate which treatments interested them. Their doctor then received the results along with an alert and a ready-made order set for physical therapy referrals, specialist referrals, or medications.

Over 72,000 women responded to the screening question. About 9% said they had bothersome leakage and wanted to learn about treatments. After the program launched, UI diagnoses increased by about 40%, pelvic floor physical therapy referrals nearly tripled, and subspecialty referrals increased by 60%. Interestingly, medication prescriptions didn’t change — possibly because the educational module informed women about the unfavorable side effects of older bladder medications, including increased dementia risk.

One simple question — asked automatically before a routine doctor’s visit — increased bladder leakage diagnoses by 40% and nearly tripled physical therapy referrals. Want to know what that question is and how to use it at your next visit? Keep reading.

🔒 The rest of this post is for paid subscribers. Includes a BONUS TOOL to check and get taught about bladder leakage!