Physician pattern of patient notification of test results.

Objective: To discover how community-based family physicians notify patients of test results and whether there are differences based on sex, length of time in practice, reimbursement status, employment status,or percentage of practice in managed care.

Methods: We mailed a survey to 500 randomly selected members of the South Carolina chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians. All analyses were preformed using SASTM version 8.2. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the collected data.

Results: A total of 367 physicians responded (73% response rate). The main outcome variable was the time each physician spent notifying patients of test results: a mean of 20.86 +/- 18.3 minutes per day(range 0-120 minutes/day). Women physicians and those with more than 75% managed care were significantly more likely to spend more than the median time notifying patients of test results.

Conclusion: Physicians vary in the amount of time they spend notifying patients of their test results, with female physicians and those with more than 75% of their practice in managed care spending more time than do male physicians and physicians with less managed care.