Would seem to me that QD is in the hottest seat. They KNOW which MDs are set up (my guess is not many, even among the technophilic practices), but they are not now sharing – and I imagine they aren’t highly inclined to noodge docs who are NOT running to hook up the QD PIN access by putting up a search utility to make distinguish “haves” from “have nots” easier for consumers.

What will happen?

Frankly, I am in need of a hobby, and the opportunity to monitor progress on this facet of health care info access sets me up nicely…. ; – )

So, we as consumers will have to go to our doctor and strongly encourage them to “get set-up” on the QD system.

Now the question is, how easy/readily will physicians do such to facilitate their customers access to the Quest labs? This could become a significant hurdle.

John that is great news! Do you happen to know what the rollout timetable is?

Thanks,

So yes that same system does actually tell patients which doctors have “opted in” to the program and want to be listed as enabling the result downloads.

Physicians do need to “opt in” though so there is some lag between the time Google Health launched and when the physicians will show up in the doctor directory with a link for Quest that says “Download your lab results” next to the doctors listing.

Doctor who ordered your labs must issue you a PIN. How do they do that? According to QD helpstaff, they have to be ‘set up on QD’s system’. If they’re not – and they are not obliged to be – QD will not give you access to your labs.

OK, sez I, and called my doctor. Sure enough, neither doc nor staff know anything about GOOG Health, or their ‘opportunity’ to issue me a QD PIN, and furthermore did not WANT to know. Note to self: time for a new doctor.

So, back to QD with this question: “how do I find a doctor who IS set up to issue QD PINs?”

You can probably guess the answer: ‘Gee, WE don’t keep a database of that info. You’ll have to call doctors to find out if they are set up to issue PINs’ So in other words, your doc has to be set up on QD’s system to ISSUE PINs, but they’re unable to wield that same system to let patients know about doctors who ARE set up to issue them.

What’s the right lab test for a splitting headache?

As is so often the case, it ain’t the technology, it’s the perverse human behavior all around it….