Physicians Frequently Fail to Inform Patients About Abnormal Test Results
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical CenterNew research shows that physicians failed to report clinically significant abnormal test results to patients -- or to document that they had informed them -- in one out of every 14 cases of abnormal results. In some medical groups, the failure rate is close to zero; in others it is as high as one in four abnormal results.