According to a new study people who visit their primary care physician for routine tests and screenings are often not informed of the results and these primary care clinics often do not keep the records if the patients were informed of the results or not.

The researchers said that this was "relatively common," and potentially dangerous for consumer health as this was the case even when the results were abnormal and potentially troublesome.

Dr. Lawrence P. Casalino, an associate professor and chief of the division of outcomes and effectiveness research in the public health department at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and the study's lead author said, "If you're a patient, it's often assumed that no news is good news. But the bottom line is that is not always the case, and patients should not passively go along with that. "A lot of things can go wrong in the office. Some may never receive a report from the lab, or it may come in but the doctor never sees it and it might get filed away before he does."

In the study Casalino and colleagues examined the medical records of 5,434 patients of primary care practices between the ages of 50 and 69 years who were randomly selected. They found 1,889 abnormal results and 135 cases where the patient was not informed of the test result or lack of documentation of the patient being informed. This worked out to a rate of 7.1 % or one out of every 14 abnormal tests not being reported.

The researchers additionally noted that that many of the primary care facilities that were involved in the study did not follow basic protocol for test processing. "Most [practices] did not have explicit rules for notifying patients of results, the researchers wrote."To our knowledge, this is the first study to estimate the failure-to-inform rate across a variety of tests and types of medical practice."

Another interesting fact the researchers noted was that practices where a combination of paper and electronic records were used had the highest failure rates, while no differences were noted in failure rates between facilities that used only paper or electronic records.

Casalino said practices that had better test result management procedures in general had lower failure rates. "Yet even in the best doctor's office it is possible -- and, actually, not uncommon -- for test results one way or another to get overlooked," he said.

As many primary care doctors' offices are swamped with paperwork, it's easy for test reports to go to the wrong place, or the right place and not be seen, and that often doctors don't see and act on lab results.

"There is a disconnect in many offices, and this is alarming," said Casalino. "Some patients aren't being told about the results of tests, and this shouldn't happen. The takeaway message for consumers is clear -- if you don't hear within two weeks, call your doctor's office."

Diane Pinakiewicz, president of the nonprofit National Patient Safety Foundation said, "Patients should not accept it when a physician or clinician says they will let you know if something is wrong. Patients should ask for their test results on a consistent basis, whether or not the results are of concern -- because, if you ask for them 100 percent of the time, there is no question you will always stay informed."

The study was published in the June 22 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.