The ExpertsShould doctors communicate with their patients via email?

    Yes. Not routinely using email today is the equivalent of not accepting phone calls forty years ago. But like every change in health care, the question opens bigger issues. Any medical information sent by email has to be firewalled and secure—patient privacy is not only a right, it’s now a highly regulated mandate under HIPPA. There are also practical considerations of time and reimbursement. Consider the hours your personal email consumes and you can imagine the inbox for a doctor with 2,000 patients in her panel. Mid-level providers could be used to screen emails as long as patients know their message will be read by someone other than their personal physician.

    So who pays for the extra time email takes? Currently, if you are well insured, you go to your doctor’s office for all but the simplest question. It costs you next to nothing, at least on the surface, and your insurance company pays the fifty to one hundred dollar bill. But in a system with more cost transparency and personal responsibility you might be happier with a quick email. And under a uniform, streamlined health-care program your doctor’s office could devote more staff to communicating with patients rather than haggling with insurance billing offices.

    Dr. Carol Cassella (@CarolCassella) is a practicing physician and author of the novels “Oxygen” and “Healer.”

    Read the related article.

    Read the latest Health Care Report.