Group Health sets example for physician-patient e-mail
HIPAA Weekly Advisor, October 1, 2007
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Group Health, a Seattle-based nonprofit healthcare system, makes healthcare more convenient and affordable by providing patients with e-mail access to their physicians, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in a September 20 article.
Although some believe that physician-client e-mail communication will negatively affect a healthcare provider's bottom line, a study of Group Health has proven otherwise, according to the article. Although the study did find a decrease in phone calls and patient visits, the difference wasn't substantial. As Ted Eytan, MD, medical director of health informatics and Web services for Group Health, points out in the article, "there is no reimbursement for phone calls" to begin with.
There are also privacy concerns about granting e-mail access, the article pointed out. However, Group Health has been providing secure, private e-mail contact with physicians since 2000, and as of July, patients were sending Group Health physicians more than 32,000 emails each month, according to the Post-Intelligencer.
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