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Friedman, Danielle. “Your Medical Test Results Are Available. but Do You Want to View Them?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Oct. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/well/live/medical-test-results-cures-act.html.

Thomas, Katie, and Jessica Silver-greenberg. “How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Sept. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/health/bon-secours-mercy-health-profit-poor-neighborhood.html?smid=tw-share.

LJ;, Radecki SE;Beckman. “Contraceptive Risk-Taking in a Medically Underserved, Low-Income Population.” Social Biology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8178193/.

A;, Ford K;Rubinstein S;Norris. “Sexual Behavior and Condom Use among Urban, Low-Income, African-American and Hispanic Youth.” AIDS Education and Prevention : Official Publication of the International Society for AIDS Education, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8080706/.

“Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Information?” Clinical Correlations, https://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/2016/12/01/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-much-information/.

“Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Poor Health.” Barriers to Health Care for Low-Income America, https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/longform/stories/poorhealth/1/.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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This article explains the barriers that comes with poverty. The correlation between poor health and low economic status is emphasized in this article.

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The past few decades of closures completed a chapter in which the founding principle of hospitals in the United States was stood on its head.

Most hospitals began as charitable institutions dedicated to the poor, often started by religious groups or social reformers.

In Milwaukee, Lutheran deaconesses converted a hilltop farmhouse into a hospital for the poor in August 1863. It is the ancestor of the complex on Kilbourn Avenue that is now home to the nonprofit City on a Hill.

Originally named Milwaukee Hospital, it was often called "The Passavant" after William A. Passavant, a Pennsylvania-born Lutheran minister who founded hospitals, orphanages, seminaries and colleges across the country, including what is now UPMC Passavant in McCandless. Passavant brought German deaconesses to the United States to replicate the medical training and hospital model established in Dusseldorf, spreading the best care practices of the day.

He traveled to Milwaukee to work with local leaders who wanted to establish a hospital for the poor. Four Milwaukee doctors volunteered their services for the new hospital.

"At that point, there was nothing here," said Diane De La Santos, executive director of City on a Hill. "It was all volunteer. The director was a pastor."

Individuals and congregations contributed to the effort, sponsoring beds or making donations of livestock or ice for the icehouse.

Around the country, dozens of similar institutions were founded. Look on the website of a typical health care giant and you'll find a version of the humble beginnings story:

In Buffalo, N.Y., Sister Ursula Mattingly - "one of God's trouble shooters" - was the first president of the Sisters of Charity Hospital established in 1848. It is now part of the Catholic Health system, a network of hospitals and clinics that serves western New York.

In Washington Territory in 1856, Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart arrived to find "a new world of physical hardships" where there were no hospitals "and little in the way of charitable services for those suffering the misfortunes of life on the frontier." She established the hospital that eventually expanded into today's Providence Health & Services, an $8.7 billion health care system with facilities in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, California and Montana.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, local governments - often counties - began to open public hospitals, designed to serve the poor.

Most hospitals remained charitable institutions, but many began to accept paying patients as well. At Milwaukee Hospital, the first non-charity patients were admitted in 1873, at the rate of $5 per week. By the 1920s, hospitals served affluent as well as poor patients; medical schools became well established; and the American medical profession grew more powerful and prestigious.

The advent of private and public insurance reshaped the economics of health care.

During the Great Depression, administrators at Baylor Hospital in Dallas created the "Baylor Plan" - the first prepaid hospital insurance plan in the United States and predecessor of Blue Cross. Insurance for physicians' services was also developed in the 1930s.

The success of these programs encouraged more insurers to enter the health care market, and a labor shortage during World War II led to health insurance becoming part of many benefits packages, spurred by government tax incentives. Employers found that offering a health insurance package was a way to attract workers, and the federal tax write-off companies got for providing the benefit gave an incentive to make it a regular practice.

The entry of the government in the health insurance market with Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s put many more Americans on an insurance plan, and more and more employees had private insurance through their employers.

By 1968, 80.8 percent of Americans had health insurance coverage, according to a statistical report published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Our whole pricing system is illogical and unnecessarily complex," said George Brown, CEO of Legacy Health Care in Portland, Ore. "It's a system created by the bright idea during World War II of giving employers tax breaks."

That created new incentives and erased others.

Because a third party was paying, patients weren't deterred by the normal market mechanism - cost. And because health care providers were being reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis, they had little incentive to keep those costs down. Health care got more and more expensive. It also became lucrative for many providers and insurers, spawning a booming - and competitive - new industry. In the 1960s, the number of hospitals climbed, reaching its peak in 1970.

Those structural economic changes meant hospitals got most of their revenue from selling specific services to private and government insurers rather than seeking donations and endowments to finance general care for whoever needed it, said Martin Gaynor, E.J. Barone Professor of Economics and Health Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

"If the way you survive is by selling stuff, why are you going to behave differently from other big businesses?" Mr. Gaynor said.

Business boomed and hospitals expanded as insurance reimbursement rewarded tests, treatments and hospitalization.

The Milwaukee Hospital complex, which changed its name to Lutheran Hospital in 1966, continued to expand, with additions in 1970 and 1974.

Hospitals competed with one another to get patients and began to acquire or merge with other hospitals and to buy physician practices to get their patients.

But even as hospitals added beds, technology and changes in Medicare were reducing the need for them. In the 1980s, Medicare switched to paying a fixed amount for specific services. This gave hospitals an incentive to send patients home as quickly as possible, since they got paid the same whether a patient stayed three days or seven days, for example, after a given procedure.

Advances in technology made it possible for outpatient care to replace inpatient care for many procedures. The demand for health care services continued to grow, but many hospitals struggled to fill their beds. That led to chaotic patterns of growth and retraction.

Health care experts recognized that competing hospitals were overbuilding and duplicating services and expensive equipment, which increased the costs of care. Nevertheless, expansion continued across the nation. When the supply exceeded demand, mergers, acquisitions and closures resulted.

Mergers continued as struggling systems sought to survive by joining forces, and powerful systems absorbed hospitals to gain market share. Weaker hospitals in poor neighborhoods often merged and then were shut down as "campuses" of bigger systems.

In Milwaukee, that played out in the 1980 merger of Lutheran and Evangelical Deaconess hospitals; the new institution was called Good Samaritan.

In 1984, Good Samaritan merged with St. Luke's; the Deaconess campus was closed and its buildings razed the following year.

Good Samaritan continued to buy properties and renovate its Kilbourn Avenue location. It merged with Mount Sinai in 1987 to create the Sinai Samaritan Medical Center based on North 12th Street. The Kilbourn Avenue complex - 10 blocks away - become the "west campus."

After three mergers in seven years, the system, which had been renamed Aurora Health Care, announced a three-year consolidation plan in 1988. It called for a reduction in beds from 913 to 581.

Within a decade, the west campus was shut down and the buildings were boarded up.

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The past few decades of closures completed a chapter in which the founding principle of hospitals in the United States was stood on its head. Most hospitals began as charitable institutions dedicated to the poor, often started by religious groups or social reformers.

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The question that this article achieves to awnser is "How much information is enough information and how much information is too much information?" It expresses the cons of knowing all about your health to be frustrating in addition to other cons

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Is there such a thing as too much information? – Clinical Correlations

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This article expresses demographics between sexual behavior amongst urban and low income young adults who are pre dominantly African American and Hispanic.

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Affiliation

¹ Department of Population Planning and International Health, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-2029.

Abstract

Low income, urban, African-American, and Hispanic youth have been identified as a group for which there is concern about the spread of HIV. Using data from a household probability sample of 1,435 minority youth aged 15 to 24 in Detroit, this paper evaluates levels of sexual activity, condom use, and reasons for condom use and non-use. Comparisons with national samples of minority youth indicated that Detroit low-income youth have similar patterns of sexual behavior to national samples, although males and African-American females began their sexual experiences earlier and were less likely to have used condoms or other protection from pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) at first intercourse. Recent levels of condom use also left many Detroit youth unprotected from STDs. Less than half used a condom at least intercourse in the last year with nonmarital partners that they "knew well." In addition, condom use with partners that they "did not know well" was very low for Hispanic youth: Among those who had at least one casual partner in the last year, only 30% to 33% had ever used a condom with that partner. Analysis of reasons for use indicate that both pregnancy prevention and disease prevention were important motivations for condom use. However, many youth did not use condoms for reasons such as unavailability of condoms or unplanned sex.

PIP: African-American and Hispanic youth of low income residing in urban settings are at particular risk of contracting and spreading HIV. This paper reports findings from a study evaluating the levels of sexual activity, condom use, and reasons for condom use and non-use among a sample of 1435 minority youth aged 15-24 users of mean age 19.1 in Detroit. Compared against national samples of minority youth, these subjects have similar patterns of sexual behavior, although males and African-American females began their sexual experiences earlier and were less likely to have used condoms or other protection from pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases at first intercourse. 35-48% used a condom at last intercourse in the last year with nonmarital partners that they knew well. Among Hispanic subjects reporting having at least one casual partner in the last year, only 30-33% had ever used a condom with that partner. Further, prevention against both pregnancy and disease were found to be important motivators for using condoms, but many did not use them because they were unavailable or the sexual encounter was unplanned.

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Condom use and HIV risk behaviors among U.S. adults: data from a national survey.

Anderson JE, Wilson R, Doll L, Jones TS, Barker P. Anderson JE, et al. Fam Plann Perspect. 1999 Jan-Feb;31(1):24-8. Fam Plann Perspect. 1999. PMID: 10029929

[Global prevention of HIV infection. Steady sexual relations mean safe protection. Use of condoms is like Russian roulette].

Bendtsen P, Hofvander Y. Bendtsen P, et al. Lakartidningen. 1990 Nov 21;87(47):3975-6. Lakartidningen. 1990. PMID: 2263107 Review. Swedish.

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Quality of condom use as reported by female clients of a family planning clinic.

Oakley D, Bogue EL. Oakley D, et al. Am J Public Health. 1995 Nov;85(11):1526-30. doi: 10.2105/ajph.85.11.1526. Am J Public Health. 1995. PMID: 7485665 Free PMC article. Clinical Trial.

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acquired immunodeficiency syndrome / ethnology*

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acquired immunodeficiency syndrome / prevention & control

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african americans / statistics & numerical data*

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hispanic or latino / statistics & numerical data*

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sexual behavior / statistics & numerical data

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national center for biotechnology information

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Sexual behavior and condom use among urban, low-income, African-American and Hispanic youth - PubMed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Low income, urban, African-American, and Hispanic youth have been identified as a group for which there is concern about the spread of HIV. Using data from a household probability sample of 1,435 minority youth aged 15 to 24 in Detroit, this paper evaluates levels of sexual activity, condom use, and ...

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This article depicts the link between women who are identified as low income to the usage of contraceptives. Demographics show that low income women do not take advantage of contraceptives nor some do not have the knowledge

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Abstract

This study examines the phenomenon of contraceptive risk-taking, which is the nonuse of contraception by women who are sexually active, fertile and not pregnant or trying to become pregnant. Based on a survey sample of low-income women in their childbearing years who had not received family planning care or advice from a doctor or clinic for at least three years, the study analyzed demographic predictors of contraceptive risk-taking and also compared levels of contraceptive knowledge and pregnancy histories of noncontraceptors versus barrier contraceptors. Contraceptive risk-taking was found to be higher for minority women, for parous women, for those age 30 and younger, and for those whose knowledge of the fertility cycle is incorrect, but risk-taking was found to be unrelated to the women's marital status. Noncontraceptors were less knowledgeable concerning contraceptive methods and substantially more likely to have had previous unwanted pregnancies due to nonuse of contraception, suggesting that current contraceptive risk-taking probably represents a relatively enduring feature of reproductive behavior for a subgroup of the medically undeserved low-income population.

PIP: Contraceptive risk-taking occurs when women who are sexually active, fertile, and not pregnant or trying to become pregnant fail to use readily available contraceptives. This behavior occurs disproportionately among low-income women. Therefore, survey data from contraceptive risk-taking, low-income, inner-city women living in Los Angeles County in the US in 1986 who had not received formal family planning care for at least 3 years were examined to determine 1) the social and personal characteristics (including knowledge and attitudes) associated with contraceptive risk-taking by low-income women and 2) the relationship between contraceptive risk-taking and knowledge about reproduction and specific contraceptive methods and history of wanted and unwanted pregnancies. The sample derived after screening was one-third White, one-third Hispanic, and one-third Black. It was also equally divided among 3 poverty groups: below poverty, 100-149% of poverty, and 150% or more of the poverty level. The response rate for the interviews was 82.6%, and 20.5% were found to be contraceptive risk-takers. In the subsample of 211 women analyzed, a comparison was made of the contraceptive risk-takers (44%) to women reporting use of a barrier method (56%). Crude odds ratios showed that Black and Hispanic women, those with a high school education or less, those who had inaccurate beliefs about the most fertile period, and those living below the poverty level were associated with increased contraceptive risk-taking. Other significant factors were age 30 or younger, previous births, and a low level of contraceptive knowledge. Contraceptive risk-taking was not predicted by marital status, fertility intentions, frequency of intercourse, or probable reaction to an unwanted pregnancy. After logistic regression adjustment, Black and Hispanic women, those with previous births, age 30 or younger, and incorrect fertility knowledge showed a greater tendency toward contraceptive risk-taking (odds ratios 2.5-3.8), with income, education, and contraceptive knowledge no longer significant. The contraceptive knowledge variables used as predictors of contraceptive use were knowledge of the fertile period and an ability to rank the effectiveness of various methods. Pregnancy history data showed that there was a highly significant (P 0.001) difference between the 2 groups, with more than 3 times as many unwanted pregnancies in the noncontracepting group, while numbers of intended pregnancies were virtually identical. Contracepting women were more likely to have previously used any method for at least a month, and current barrier users had used oral contraceptives longer than noncontraceptors (4.3 vs. 2.4 years). Since data from the National Survey of Family Growth (1988) show that only 9.2% of fertile women at all income levels are contraceptive risk-takers, the 44% figure in the present study shows an odds ratio of 4.5 attributable to just being a member of this medically-underserved, low-income population. This pattern reflects an established mode of behavior rather than an occasional lapse among the very women who can ill afford an unwanted pregnancy.

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Contraceptive risk-taking in a medically-underserved, low-income population.

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An assessment of contraceptive need in the inner city.

Radecki SE, Bernstein GS. Radecki SE, et al. Fam Plann Perspect. 1990 May-Jun;22(3):122-7, 144. Fam Plann Perspect. 1990. PMID: 2379569

Contraceptive use, pregnancy and fertility patterns among single American women in their 20s.

Tanfer K, Horn MC. Tanfer K, et al. Fam Plann Perspect. 1985 Jan-Feb;17(1):10-9. Fam Plann Perspect. 1985. PMID: 3979524

Understanding U.S. fertility: continuity and change in the National Survey of Family Growth, 1988-1995.

Mosher WD, Bachrach CA. Mosher WD, et al. Fam Plann Perspect. 1996 Jan-Feb;28(1):4-12. Fam Plann Perspect. 1996. PMID: 8822409 Review.

Fertility and family planning in the United States: insights from the National Survey of Family Growth.

Mosher WD. Mosher WD. Fam Plann Perspect. 1988 Sep-Oct;20(5):207-17. Fam Plann Perspect. 1988. PMID: 3068068 Review.

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contraception / statistics & numerical data*

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national center for biotechnology information

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Contraceptive risk-taking in a medically underserved, low-income population - PubMed

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This study examines the phenomenon of contraceptive risk-taking, which is the nonuse of contraception by women who are sexually active, fertile and not pregnant or trying to become pregnant. Based on a survey sample of low-income women in their childbearing years who had not received family planning ...

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This article encapsulates how the poor neighborhood of Virginia is not attentive to its patients due to the corruption of the Healthcare system. This article does an excellent job at exemplifying why and how the Healthcare system is corrupt.

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How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits

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Bon Secours Mercy Health, a major nonprofit health system, used the poverty of Richmond Community Hospital’s patients to tap into a lucrative federal drug program.

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Article that elucidates the pros and cons of knowing your medical test results. Article integrates a few examples by quoting patients explaining their thoughts and story on their Health and whether or not they like knowing their medical results.

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The 21st Century Cures Act gave patients easy access to their health information. Now, some diagnoses delivered without context are causing high anxiety.

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Credit... Diana Ejaita

Late last fall I suffered a second-trimester pregnancy loss. The experience was devastating, and the weeks after were a blur of grief, anger and physical turmoil. About a month later, on a day when I was feeling more like myself than I had in a while, I was folding clothes in my 3-year-old son's room when I received an alert from MyChart, an app that gives patients access to their records and doctors' messages, with a new test result to view.

But I was not prepared for what I saw on the screen - a fetal autopsy report.

Later, my OB-GYN explained that I had received the alert without hearing from her first because of a provision in the 21st Century Cures Act, a federal law that requires all medical testing centers to release results to patients "without delay." In practice, this means that doctors and patients often receive results simultaneously - and some patients are seeing them before their doctors have a chance to look.

President Barack Obama signed the Cures Act, which also provided billions of dollars for medical research, in December 2016. But the provision governing access to patient records didn't take effect until April 2021, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began enforcing a rule declaring that " blocking " patients from their own health information was against the law and could result in fines for hospitals and doctors.

Its intention was to bring health care into the modern era. And the provision has successfully given patients easy access to their medical records, empowering them to play a more active role in their care by eliminating the doctor as gatekeeper.

But it has also led to experiences like mine, in which patients are confronted with material they never wanted to see. Some have learned about life-altering diagnoses and developments - from cancer to chronic illness to miscarriage - through emails and online portals, left to process the information alone.

Most doctors support the Cures Act as a whole. "We're big supporters of the move in this direction" in general, said Dr. Jack Resneck, president of the American Medical Association and a dermatologist in San Francisco. But this provision, he said, is leading to "emotional and mental harm."

Nicki Swann, 38, a professor in Eugene, Ore., was shocked and confused when she learned through an app that she had colon cancer after having polyps removed. She was home alone - her husband had taken their infant daughter on a walk - when she received an email letting her know that results were ready. "I couldn't imagine that anything but good news would be shared in that way," she said.

She immediately called her doctor's office. But it was a Friday afternoon, and the physician was unavailable. They didn't speak until the following week. "Any cancer diagnosis is going to cause trauma," she said. "But I think it was much worse to receive it in that way."

"When information is just given in black-and-white type on MyChart, that's not the full expression of compassionate care," said Dr. Elizabeth Comen, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. "Yes, it is immediate care, but it's care out of context."

Before the Cures Act provision, doctors had different approaches to giving patients their test results. Some offices would contact patients within hours or days; others sent paper results via mail. Some would take a "no news is good news" approach, sharing results only if they revealed something worrisome; others waited to share results in person.

Lawmakers hoped to standardize the way we get results and increase transparency, said Micky Tripathi, the national coordinator for health information technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. With the Cures Act's provision on releasing medical records, there was to be no more wondering, waiting or spending time trying to track down answers.

"We should be adopting modern internet conventions," Dr. Tripathi said, which includes making information accessible to consumers as soon as it is available."I think that is the normal internet expectation all of us have."

Genevieve Morris, a senior director at the health technology company Change Healthcare who, in a previous role, helped draft the Cures Act, said she thought patients had become used to not having access to personal data. "We now have to adjust to a world where we are going to have all of our data at our fingertips," she said.

Many patients I spoke with appreciated having direct access to their health information. "I feel more in control," said Yasi Noori-Bushehri, 32, an engineer in San Diego who has Graves' disease, an autoimmune disorder that requires her to closely monitor her thyroid hormone levels. Having access to her medical information has given Ms. Noori-Bushehri confidence to ask for changes in her treatment plan: When her doctor suggested tweaking her thyroid medication, she pointed to previous lab reports suggesting that the change might throw her hormones out of whack. After talking it through, the doctor agreed.

Some patients said receiving test results - even difficult ones - before speaking with their doctor had allowed them to feel more prepared when they did connect. "You can go into the next appointment having done your homework," said Teresa Christopherson, 59, who regularly gets updates on the status of her breast cancer via an online portal. She said that gave her the opportunity to "ask the right questions" about next steps. "Everyone has the right to their own medical information in real time, not on the doctor's time," she said.

Many doctors said they supported instant access, too, in most cases. "If your cholesterol has gone up, that might not be good news, but it's not the same as finding out that you have a lung nodule in a chest X-ray," Dr. Resneck said.

But when difficult, life-changing information is delivered in this way, "it cuts off any opportunity for doctors to get ahead of things," said Dr. Emily Porter, an emergency room and sexual health physician in Austin, Texas, who has criticized the policy on social media.

The Cures Act does offer a " preventing harm exception " to its provision requiring the swift release of test results. But the bar for what counts as harm is high: The provider must be able to anticipate that the test results could lead a patient to harm himself or herself.

This exception also doesn't account for cases in which a routine test reveals an unexpected finding. A weekend spent searching online for medical information with knots in your stomach - or, in my case, seeing an upsetting report - does not qualify as harm.

Last month, the A.M.A. released the results of a survey of 1,000 people about the Cures Act's provision on test results. Roughly 42 percent of the patients surveyed wanted test results as soon as they were available, while about 43 percent preferred to hear from their doctors first. But among those who wanted instant access, more than half said that, in the case of a "debilitating, life-limiting or terminal illness," they would like to speak with a doctor first.

Since the provision took effect, Dr. David Gerber, a lung cancer specialist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, has met with many patients and caregivers who have shared their emotional distress over receiving results without context. In an editorial he wrote for an oncology medical journal last year, he described the experience of trying to get to a patient before the patient could receive results through an app as if it were a race. "I still remember the first time we lost," he wrote, referring to a time when a patient's wife was convinced that her husband's cancer had returned after she misinterpreted a technical report delivered via email.

In an interview, Dr. Gerber said that, before the Cures Act, results were automatically released to patients after 72 hours - that was enough time to review them, confer with other physicians and get in touch with patients. "Things seemed a little bit smoother and less turbulent," he said, "but not necessarily slower in a way that was clinically meaningful." He would also release full medical reports to patients, but only afterdiscussing the results with them.

Dr. Comen also acknowledged that previous systems had been imperfect. "We have to honor the reality that waiting can feel impossibly hard," she said. "But I don't think anything replaces a doctor holding your hand and looking you in the eye and saying: 'I'm going to go through every aspect of this with you in real time. You can ask me your questions. I will read your body language. I will give you tissues. I will be there with you.'"

For the past several months, the A.M.A. has been urging the Department of Health and Human Services to make what Dr. Resneck calls "common sense" exceptions to the current rule. Last month, the group published a statement laying out its concerns and requesting language to "explicitly allow physicians, using their professional judgment, to withhold some information if immediate or proactive release could cause a patient mental or emotional harm."

While such exceptions are allowed currently, they must be requested beforehand by a patient or caregiver. And with the existing technology, few providers have the practical ability to prevent a patient's results from being automatically released electronically

Dr. Tripathi of Health and Human Services said, "We recognize this is a really big transition for all of us." But he added that department officials hoped the Cures Act would encourage patients to become more engaged with their own care and talk with their doctors about how they want to receive information.

They would also like to see health care apps introduce more flexibility - including options for physicians to indicate a patient's preferences on a case-by-case basis and ways for patients to opt out of receiving certain results in real time.

If you are undergoing a medical test, ask your doctor for expectations around timing, doctors said - both in terms of when results might be released electronically and when you can expect to hear from the doctor's office, so you can prepare mentally and emotionally.

For Ashley Collins, 39, a breast cancer survivor in Durham, N.C., this kind of conversation was crucial to easing her emotional distress after a mastectomy.

After the surgery, Ms. Collins was eager to learn the results of biopsies that would reveal whether chemotherapy had eliminated her breast cancer. But before leaving the hospital, she spoke with her surgeon about timing, and her doctor told her that she would call her as soon as possible after the results were posted online. Knowing that she would be hearing from her doctor within a certain time frame, Ms. Collins opted not even to look at the MyChart report and waited for her call.

"From the time that you get the ding on your Apple Watch that says, 'New results are in your chart,' it's a sort of Pavlovian response of anxiety that kicks in," Ms. Collins said. "Mercifully, my surgeon called me very soon after the result was posted."

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Your Medical Test Results Are Available. But Do You Want to View Them?

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The 21st Century Cures Act gave patients easy access to their health information. Now, some diagnoses delivered without context are causing high anxiety. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

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7 participants were surveyed in regards to the Healthcare system. The questions asked correlates to the corruption of the healthcare system, their personal experiences with it, and would they like to adapt knowledge of their own health to take precautions carefully and sooner.

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Google Forms - create and analyze surveys, for free.