David: I respect your efforts to speak with the patients personally and appreciate you posting this workflow. I am always interested in hearing other workflow patters to help improve my own efficiency. I have one major concern about the portal. Normal labs are no big deal. However, for an abnormal lab, or abnormal imaging, I wonder about the medicolegal ramifications. If I send an abnormal lab to the portal, they can say they never got the email. If I have my nurse call them, or call them myself, I can chart that the patient was informed of labs, imaging, etc and the plan discussed. I don't know if the portal shifts the responsibility for follow up back to them as well as a phone call does. However, I do trust my RN to tell a patient her mammogram was abnormal and needs a repeat in 6 mo.
