Here’s a rather shocking statistic from a recent study: 25% of abnormal medical test results never get reported to the patient.Part of this is due to the negligence of certain doctors and their staffs – although, in some cases, it has to do with the national shortage of primary-care physicians. Often, it’s the primary-care physician who wrangles the test results and reports them to the patient. If someone’s getting their basic care from a doc-in-the-box or an emergency room, the lab or specialist may not have a clear idea of the chain of command. (In case you don’t know, a “doc-in-the-box” is a nickname for a walk-in clinic, at least here in New Jersey.)
Whatever the reason, this number is way too high.
Actually, something like that happened to me with my colonoscopy several years ago (results were normal in that case). I didn’t hear from the gastroenterologist, and I simply told myself, "I guess no news is good news." On a subsequent visit to Dr. Cheli (my primary-care doc) a few months later, I asked him if he’d heard the results of my 50th-birthday colonoscopy. He hadn’t, and had one of his nurses call back, then and there, to the office of the gastro guy. Then, I overheard him talking on the phone to one of that doctor’s office staff, chewing them out for not sending the results to either of us. Good thing there was no abnormality – although his office evidently didn’t have a fail-safe procedure in place for checking back in the event of results that never came.
All of this just goes to show us patient types: in this crazy, dysfunctional medical system, we’ve got to be our own advocates. If we don’t look out for our own interests, it’s very possible no one else will.A word to the wise...
So, what about the rest of you? Have any of you had difficulties with test results not getting reported to either you or your primary-care doc? Sound off in a comment, below...
