You’re Seeing Medical Test Results Before Your Doctor Does. Why?

livemint.com:

This wasn’t the way Laurette Bennhold-Samaan wanted to learn she had breast cancer: alone and logging onto her medical portal to see the words “invasive ductal carcinoma." Stunned, the 62-year-old from Arlington, Va., called her doctor. “I’m sorry you’re giving me the information I should be giving you," she recalls her doctor saying. People are now often getting medical information from portals and electronic health records directly, without it first being filtered by their doctor.

The information includes CT scans, biopsies and several other types of potentially life-altering results. It’s coming to them directly because of a provision in legislation mandating that patients receive health information without delay. Doctors say the law’s intent is good but that in practice, raw test results can spark confusion at best and panic at worst.

Sometimes, patients misinterpret harmless information. Other times, people receive bad news without an explanation that could cushion the blow. “There is tremendous potential for harm with the release of some types of tests to patients without providing some type of clinical context," says Dr.

David Gerber, a Dallas-based oncologist. Gerber said he’s had patients learn about a cancer diagnosis from a smartphone notification in the middle of a business dinner, while reading a bedtime story to a 3-year-old, and during a rush-hour commute. One patient’s spouse went to the emergency room for an anxiety attack after misinterpreting her husband’s CT scan.