Medical portals

I see most test results on the portal before I see the doctor and I am thankful for that. For example, I saw my biopsy results which indicated cancer before my doc could tell me, “You’ve got cancer!” So when I finally did see him, the shock had worn off and I was able to do some research and formulate some questions for him. If I had waited for the doc to spring the news, I’m sure I would have been stunned and probably missed most of what he said after the diagnosis. Getting the diagnosis early allowed me to process it emotionally and be in a better frame of mind when I saw the doc for the follow up. Another example was a subsequent visit when he told me my Decipher test results had not come back yet and I was able to tell him, “Oh yes they have…would you like to know what they say?”.

The general answer...the ACA required patient access to their EHR without having to wait until a consult with their doctor.

Implementation of course as one might expect with a variety of health organization and contractors developing systems has been pretty good, well, ok, not bad, pretty awful...

For me, the hospitals I see or have been seen at, Mayo, Advent Health, Saint Luke's, Menorah, KU, Advent Health...have chosen to use My Chart.

This has enabled me to connect those organizations and grant access to my medical team to see all my test results, visit summaries....

As others have said, they prefer to wait to see their medical to know and discuss the results.

Me, inquiring minds want to know...

I review the results, do my homework and a week or so before my scheduled consult send a message through the portal to my medical team saying these are the top three things I would like to discuss during our short time available, usually 15 minutes or so...

My medical team seems to like that as we don't waste time though we can and do let the conversation flow. After all, my medical team is educated, trained, licensed, verified and have a lot of experience.

But hey, at least it's a starting point for the consult.

As others have said, the actual images from tests are generally not there but heck, I couldn't begin to read those!

Kevin

@kujhawk1978 I agree. I was totally unprepared (to be fair, also paralysed on a stretcher, wearing a hospital gown, and recovering from emergency spinal surgery with a non-functional digestive tract) the first time the patient-transport people wheeled me in to meet my oncologist in 2021.

Fortunately, it turned out well, because I said the magic words "I want to fight hard" — which gave the onco team the green light to take more-aggressive and then-emerging measures, instead of treating me gently and purely palliatively— but still, I never let that happen again. I'm not a passive passenger on this cancer journey.

My MRI and biopsy results are posted quickly - often the same day or next even if the results are a problems. My PSMA scan took maybe 3 days. I was told my decipher score would take a month. The request was submitted on 7/10, still no results.

@nrfuls66
There are a bunch of spots in your body that produce PSMA. As a result, those spots are known and ignored by the doctors. Looking at a scan without knowing that can be scary.