June 2008
One-minute consult: E-mailing your doctor
By Dr. Daniel Sands
Q Do all doctors accept e-mail messages from patients?
A More physicians are adopting e-mail in their practices. Today about 25 percent of all doctors say they have e-mailed patients at some point. So feel free to ask your doctor if it's all right to e-mail for medical reasons.
Q What are the rules?
A Keep your messages succinct and focused on a single topic. Appropriate subjects might include a question about your medications or lab test results, a follow-up on how a treatment is working, or a request for a referral to a specialist. Keep in mind that most often your physician—unlike your accountant or lawyer—is not getting paid for time spent on e-mail. If it's likely to take your doctor more than 5 minutes to read and respond to your e-mail, it's probably best to make an appointment to come in.
Don't use e-mail for urgent problems. This includes most new health problems and all emergencies. If you have chest pain, develop sudden paralysis, or have wheezing and a fever, for example, call 911 or go straight to the emergency room. If you wait for your doctor to answer, it may be too late. For your doctor, there's nothing more distressing than reading a day-old e-mail describing a medical crisis. The fear that a medical emergency might be missed is one reason many doctors won't use e-mail.
Q How do I ensure it's kept private?
A It's a bad idea to send personal e-mails from your employer's e-mail system; the employer has a legal right to read your e-mail. Even in your personal account, e-mail messages can be intercepted and read, sometimes maliciously and other times accidentally. Ask your doctors if they use encryption tools or secure messaging Web sites. If not, be aware that your messages are about as confidential as postcards, and don't use them to address sensitive issues.
Daniel Sands, M.D., M.P.H., is senior medical informatics director at Cisco Systems and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
This article first appeared in the June 2008 issue of Consumer Reports on Health.
A More physicians are adopting e-mail in their practices. Today about 25 percent of all doctors say they have e-mailed patients at some point. So feel free to ask your doctor if it's all right to e-mail for medical reasons.
Q What are the rules?
A Keep your messages succinct and focused on a single topic. Appropriate subjects might include a question about your medications or lab test results, a follow-up on how a treatment is working, or a request for a referral to a specialist. Keep in mind that most often your physician—unlike your accountant or lawyer—is not getting paid for time spent on e-mail. If it's likely to take your doctor more than 5 minutes to read and respond to your e-mail, it's probably best to make an appointment to come in.
Don't use e-mail for urgent problems. This includes most new health problems and all emergencies. If you have chest pain, develop sudden paralysis, or have wheezing and a fever, for example, call 911 or go straight to the emergency room. If you wait for your doctor to answer, it may be too late. For your doctor, there's nothing more distressing than reading a day-old e-mail describing a medical crisis. The fear that a medical emergency might be missed is one reason many doctors won't use e-mail.
Q How do I ensure it's kept private?
A It's a bad idea to send personal e-mails from your employer's e-mail system; the employer has a legal right to read your e-mail. Even in your personal account, e-mail messages can be intercepted and read, sometimes maliciously and other times accidentally. Ask your doctors if they use encryption tools or secure messaging Web sites. If not, be aware that your messages are about as confidential as postcards, and don't use them to address sensitive issues.
Daniel Sands, M.D., M.P.H., is senior medical informatics director at Cisco Systems and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
This article first appeared in the June 2008 issue of Consumer Reports on Health.
