GETTING YOUR MEDICAL TEST RESULTS IS ALWAYS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

DON’T ASSUME THAT ‘NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS’ WHEN YOU HAVE TESTS DONE.
Bottom line:
“Don’t assume that ‘no news is good news’ when you have tests done. That’s a very dangerous assumption. If you’ve had a test done and you don’t hear about it after a week or two goes by, call the doctor’s office.”

Dr. Lawrence P. Casalino, an associate professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, and his colleagues reviewed the records of 5,434 patients at 19 independent primary care practices and four based in academic medical centers in a study , published in The Archives of Internal Medicine.

After extracting the records that contained abnormal results for blood tests or X-rays and other imaging studies, they then searched for documentation that the patient had been properly informed of the problem in a timely way.

After accounting for these and other ambiguous cases, the researchers found that of 1,889 abnormal results, there were 135 failures to inform.
In two of the largest academic medical centers, with a combined 80 primary care specialists, 23 percent of abnormal results were never mentioned to the patients.

The truth of the matter is that a lot of things can fall through the cracks. Information is handed down from one person to another to another before the doctor actually sees it.

Using information from a study of the literature and an earlier pilot study, the authors concluded that following 5 relatively simple procedures could eliminate most errors:
• results are routed to the responsible doctor,
• the doctor signs off on them,
• the office informs patients of all results,
• the practice documents that patients have been informed,
• and finally patients are told to call after a certain time interval if they have not learned the results of their tests.

COMMENT
The only thing for sure is #5. Every patient should be responsible to call the doctor’s office after 2 weeks of a test to find out the results. And call back over and over again till you learn the results.

Please remember, as with all our articles we provide information, not medical advice.
For any treatment of your own medical condition you must visit your local doctor, with or without our article[s]. These articles are not to be taken as individual medical advice.

*Tune in later for INVESTING HEAVILY IN PREVENTION MEASURES MAY NOT REDUCE HEALTHCARE COSTS, RESEARCH SUGGESTS.

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