The Optimized Doctor

How patients want their biopsy results


 

I had just done an ED&C, scraping the friable tumor gently from her tissue paper–thin skin. “Yes,” I replied more loudly than our close proximity would warrant. “This is probably another basal cell carcinoma. When I get the pathology back, I’ll call you.” As my medical assistant was putting on the Band-Aid, my patient exclaimed, “Oh, no! “Don’t call me! Just send me an email, honey.”

At the time of the biopsy, she was 84 years old. My 84-year-old patient just chastised me for not using her preferred method of communication. She didn’t want a follow-up visit or a phone call. She wanted an email.

Dr. Jeffrey Benabio, director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego

Dr. Jeffrey Benabio

This reminded me of a recent study in the American Journal of Managed Care. The authors found that 83% of patients wanted to receive laboratory results online regardless of whether if the result was normal or abnormal (Am J Manag Care. 2017;23[4]:e113-e119). Their findings were skewed toward digital, which contrasts with a JAMA Dermatology study from 2015 that found more patients (67%) preferred a phone call to learn their skin biopsy results (JAMA Dermatol. 2015;151[5]:513-521). Pathology results might be different than lab results in patients’ views.

A certain trend is that patients want speed and convenience. Patients, like all humans, hate to wait. They hate to wait for an appointment. They hate to wait in waiting rooms. They hate to wait for answers. They also hate phone tag and long lines at the TSA (the latter will not be covered in this column).

For most of my biopsy results, I send a secure message – essentially an email – to my patients. I do this for benign results, as well as for treated cancerous growths. For serious diagnoses such as melanoma, I call them and sometimes arrange for a follow-up appointment.

Securely emailing results saves my patients, and me, bags of time. In fact, I not only send them the diagnosis, I include the pathology report. This might seem risky: What will patients make of “atypical melanocytic hyperplasia” or “cannot rule out invasive carcinoma” in their result? I can tell you, not much. After thousands of such emails, I’ve learned that follow-up replies are rare. And I cannot recall any follow-up question that was unhelpful. I’ve even had one correct our report (“Doc, it was on the left arm, not the right”) and at least one that led to a great discussion of different treatments based on my patient’s research.

If nothing else, I hope sending path reports directly to patients will eradicate the unhelpful past medical history of “skin cancer of unknown type or stage.” One biopsy result at a time, thousands of results later, each of my patients has his or her own copy to print and share with their next dermatologist, who might just be you.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll email the result as soon as it’s back,” I replied, trying to save face. “Great!” she said, showing me her new iPhone, which was one generation advanced from my own. “I’ll get it right here!”

Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at dermnews@frontlinemedcom.com.

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