r/emergencymedicine • u/Princessgargoyle ED Attending • 13d ago

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!”

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u/Paputek101 Med Student 13d ago

Had a pt come in the other day bc they were angry that no one discussed their "abnl" labs with them... they showed me their printed out results of a hemoglobin of 11.7 from a few weeks back (in the ed their hb was above 12) and they were angry bc their ekg showed sinus brady (hr of 57). 

I think we ended up referring to primary care.

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u/D15c0untMD 13d ago

I dont get up for anything asymptomatic above a 7