June 22, 2009
The New York Times

When No News Is Bad News

By Tara Parker-Pope

Most people assume their doctor will call them if they get a bad test result. But new research shows that doctors frequently fail to inform patients about abnormal test results.

In a study led by doctors at Weill Cornell Medical College, researchers analyzed 5,434 patient records from 23 doctors’ offices around the country. The research, published in The Archives of Internal Medicine, found that the rate at which doctors fail to inform their patients varies. In some practices surveyed, doctors had a near perfect track record for informing patients about test results. In others, as many as one in four patients failed to get the bad news. Overall, the research found that about 7 percent of patients aren’t getting essential information about their health.

The researchers found that most doctor’s offices didn’t have clear rules for managing test results. And researchers said that many medical practices advise patients to make the “dangerous assumption” that no news is good news. Notably, whether an office had electronic medical records didn’t influence the likelihood of getting called with your test results. The determining factor was whether an office took a few simple steps to insure that patients got the information they needed, including making sure that each patient’s own doctor always signed off on test results.

Last year, another study published in the journal Quality & Safety in Health Care reported that about one in every 30 office visits results in a testing mistake. The biggest problems involved getting the results back from the lab, which accounted for 25 percent of the mistakes studied. Other mistakes included delays in returning results, errors on the results report or failure by the lab to provide any results to the doctor’s office. The problems were compounded by lack of follow-up by the physician’s office. About 7 percent of the mistakes involved failing to notify patients of the results.

To learn more, read Nicholas Bakalar’s full story and interview with the researchers, “Abnormal Test Results May Not Get to Patients.” And then, please join the discussion below. Have you experienced a testing mistake? Did your doctor fail to inform you of abnormal test results?