Doctor-Patient Communication Suboptimal

This email reply is in regards to my poll question on preferred way patients wish to be contacted by their doctors for their test results (http://twtpoll.com/mn9yin), if they are contacted at all.

Of course, "if you don't hear anything that means all is okay" is definitely not the answer. Many patients have been wrongly diagnosed, diagnosed too late, or died with this mantra. Lack of followup by patients and doctors is one of the top reasons for adverse outcomes and wrong diagnosis that lead to malpractice suits, delay in diagnosis, etc.

Make it your decision to contact your doctor if you don't hear about your test results in a timely manner. How you wish to contact your doctor is up to you. Make sure you followup if your doctor fails to do so.


Much thanks to Rachel Rosenfeld for allowing me to share this insightful information.

Dear Dr. Richardson,

Thanks for the DM regarding how to contact patients about test results.

In various roles as patient, family member, friend, caretaker and advocate, and in being in late 50s and having seen medicine (when did it become healthcare) change over a half century, here's my take:

40 years ago, medicine was less rushed, docs had time to pore over test results and a call from the nurse "everything came back ok" was the norm . Why did patients need specifics, they knew their doctor-god would watch over them.

Fast forward to the present with informed, educated patients as consumers, overworked physicians providing assembly-line medicine and yes, occasionally forgetting Mrs. Cardwell's first name. We know our numbers these days, or we know about our chronic conditions, we know when our hypothyroidism is not quite under control for example and "normal" won't cut it when that number is outside our personal normal limits. My cholesterol is "a little high but ok" - but what's the
change since last year? My lymphocytes are high but total count is normal - and you didn't bother to call me and I have sarcoidosis and almost died from that untreated infection that lingered for six months....

We patients watch our numbers, or our conditions ... in my case, let's watch my CA and my BUN and creatinine and the white blood cells, I'm not too worried about anything else. For my brother, it would be trends in glucose and cholesterol ...

And we know where to find the results from last month, last year, we know how we feel compared to those lab results and we know how to adjust behaviors for something trending negatively (e.g. cholesterol), or how to get hold of our specialist for something outside normal limits (e.g., elevated CA or lymphocytes as in my sarcoidosis).

But we have to be told, whether it's by direct access (hospitals in Northwest FL have been doing this for years), email, fax or phone.

"Everything's normal" is no longer the accepted norm.

Shalom
Rachel Rosenfeld