My husband had a biopsy for cancer and no call with results. After 2 wks passed I called the doctor's office and was put on a long hold. Another doctor got on the phone and said, "Somebody should have called you. Your doctor is on vacation but I didn't want you to have to wait any longer so I'll tell you: it's cancer."
I say, "Okay what's the next step?"
He says, "Well I'm not his doctor but we don't treat that."
I say, "Okay, can you refer me to someone who can help us figure out what steps are next?"
He says, "You just have to get on the phone. Try calling Mayo."
I say, "Can you post the results to the portal because I know anybody I call will ask and want to see the pathology?"
He says, "Just write this down. Do you have a pen? Squamous cell inside the nose."
I say, "Ok but when do you think you can have that posted to the portal or email me," (knowing that nobody will see my husband without that report).
He says, "I told you what it is, that's all you need."
I hang up. I call Mayo. They say, "We can't talk about it until you send the pathology report." I try to explain I don't have it yet but I know what it is. Anyway, they say, they are on a waiting list that's so long they aren't even taking new names. Call back in 6 months and see if they're taking names again.
This was the beginning, and typical of the next 4 years in our health system.
I know you all have similar stories. I wish we could solve these problems for all!
Telling an eighty-year-old woman to "check the portal" for serious biopsy results is cruelty disguised as digital efficiency.
My 82-year-old aunt had a lung biopsy done two weeks ago.
The doctor told her they’d have the pathology report ready within five business days.
Friday afternoon rolled around. No call.
She dialed the clinic’s main desk, her voice shaking with anxiety.
The receptionist cut her off before she could finish explaining:
“Doctor doesn’t give results over the phone anymore. All lab findings are automatically released to your MyChart patient portal.”
My aunt said, “Sweetheart, I don’t have a computer. I have a landline on my kitchen wall. Can the doctor just tell me if I have cancer?”
The receptionist sighed into the receiver:
“It’s hospital network policy. We can’t bypass the portal. You’ll have to have a family member create an account and view the file.”
My aunt spent an entire seventy-two-hour weekend sitting in her recliner, gripping her reading glasses, convinced she was dying.
I drove out to her house on Monday morning, set up a profile on my laptop, and pulled up the records.
The result was benign.
The pathology report had been uploaded four days earlier.
A doctor spent three minutes clicking an upload button, and an elderly woman endured four days of sheer psychological terror because the hospital decided a phone call was too expensive.
Since when did delivering medical news become a self-service task?