If you don’t ask will doctors tell tests results

If you don’t hear back from your doctor about a cancer screening, it may not necessarily mean you’re OK.  A new study finds that one out of 14 times, doctors
fail to tell patients about abnormal cancer screening results. Offices that followed certain processes, including asking patients to call if they don’t hear any news, were less likely to have high failure rates.

    Researchers reviewed the medical records of more than 5,000 randomly selected patients, ages 50 to 69, in 23 primary care practices in the Midwest and on the West coast. Practices with electronic medical records systems did worse or no better than those with paper systems. The findings are published in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine.