Patient portals.

[ckelley116]

Seriously, whose bright idea was it to create an area where test results can be sent to patients to view without the medical knowledge or context to properly interpret them?

I'm sure they're fine for normal people, but for people like us, they're a nightmare. We don't have the necessary education to interpret anything on those reports so those of us who are inclined to run to Google have to either fight really hard not to, or give in and then send ourselves into a hopefully-unnecessary tailspin because we don't know what we're looking at.

I had bloodwork done yesterday due to the discovery of a cyst on my pancreas two years ago, which no one at the time thought to mention to me and which I found by - yup - viewing my own CT scan results on the patient portal. Blood test results typically aren't the quickest to come back, at least not in my experience, so when I saw the e-mail notification a few minutes ago (23 hours after leaving the lab) of course my first thought was "all the results are bad."

I don't want to look at them; I want my doctor to give them to me so that I hear them from someone who knows what they're talking about. I deleted the e-mails from the lab and the patient portal to avoid temptation. I'm just not sure when I'll actually hear from my doctor; she only sees patients one day a week (Thursday) and if I don't hear from her today, I'm hoping I can avoid the urge to give in and look for myself over the weekend.

[.Poppy.]

It’s absolutely wild, I agree. My mom got really anxious after reading her results and then googling the meaning (she doesn’t really even have HA) and her doctor was really confused why she would do that. I would guess most people would?

I was ranting to a friend the other day, but I’m just really frustrated with doctors as of late. It seems like whenever I have an issue, they try or test for one thing and then just go “Im not sure, what do you think it is/what do you want to do next?” As if I have any kind of education to make that decision, and as if I’m not consciously trying NOT to google different things.

But hey, I also thought I had a physical with my new doctor in May - turns out the NP coded it as a “recheck” and my new doctor doesn’t actually have any physical appointments until 2025. I would love to know what she is doing with her time.

(sorry for the rant - I hope it all turns out well, and I’m sure it will!)

[ckelley116]

Omg Poppy, that’s awful! That makes me realize how grateful I should be (and am!) for my doctor. She only sees patients one day a week but I never have to wait more than a few weeks for an appointment, and she’s been so responsive through the patient portal messaging this past week.

Do you have any other options, like another office in the same network or something?

[.Poppy.]

I do have lots of options as far as my insurance, but it seems like lots of offices are operating this way - less doctors and more of a push to have NPs instead. So it may be trial and error finding a good office.

I wish my old doctor didn’t have to retire, he was great.