Reading and deleting e-mails might be customary when e-mailing for personal use. But physicians incorporating e-mail into their practices might have to get out of that habit and enter the unfamiliar territory of e-mail archiving.
"A lot of people think that e-mails are just e-mails, that it's like a telephone conversation that you have with someone, you hang up and you have no record of it," said William J. Spratt Jr., health care partner for the Miami offices of K&L Gates. "But that's not the case. It actually is a written record, and it must be maintained if it is considered a health record."
Spratt said many don't consider this fact when they start using e-mail as a form of communication between physician and patient because of the convenience it offers. But experts say e-mails should be considered part of the business record and kept for future reference.
Ryan Williams, a health care attorney at the Cleveland firm of Walter & Haverfield, said that because archiving e-mail is so important to a practice, the decision to begin e-mailing patients should be a business decision for which doctors should weigh financial and liability risks and benefits.
Even if you are receiving reimbursement for e-visits, there are costs and staff time associated with maintaining those records that might not make it worth the investment.
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Source: AMNews
By: Pamela Lewis Dolan
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