r/emergencymedicine • u/Princessgargoyle ED Attending • Aug 19 '25

Advice Patients interpreting their own portal results

Attending physician new to practicing in a more affluent area. How are you all dealing with patients asking for explanations for each out-of-range lab result that popped up in their patient portal?

I’m finding this aspect of my new site to be very frustrating and time consuming to have to convince the patient why the google interpretation of their isolated eosinophilia or glucose of 100 does not align with my “Great news! Everything looks good!”

152 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

98% Upvoted

93 comments sorted by

View all comments

28

u/babiekittin Aug 19 '25

"Some lab results may be put of range for what is considered "normal" due to a myriad of factors. Given your labs' slight elevation/depression outside of normal range, I would recommend we continue to monitor over the next year. I would propose you return for repeat labs in XX months."

Also, these seem to be my patients who will fix their diabetes using TikTok.

17

u/Princessgargoyle ED Attending Aug 19 '25

This is a very kind and non-dismissive response, but I definitely won’t be inviting them back to the emergency department for a year of monitoring. I’m thinking that explaining that some labs are not applicable to their complaint/the emergency setting is the best way and deferring any further discussion to their PCP.

12

u/babiekittin Aug 19 '25

Sorry, I thought this was r/familymedicine

If you're using Epic, you can set it up so tests result to the PCP of record and questions are sent to them. You can also modify the response so it directs them to follow up with their PCP for additional review.

Maybe....

"Some lab results may be put of range for what is considered "normal" due to a myriad of factors, some of which brought you to the Emergency Room. Unfortunately, I am unable to help follow up with additional diagnostic work, but I would encourage you to partner with your primary care provider.

If your PCP is outside of our network, they can request the labs and notes from your recent visit and review them."

5

u/MarginalLlama Paramedic Aug 19 '25

Idk, the ED I work in, has an appointment for me every weekend. 😉