I e-mail Del's PCP and he e-mails me back. I have e-mailed his nerologist and he has e-mailed me back asking for the phone number here so he could call us, which he did. Maybe you should move to Everett and live in the rain with us. But then we have a 12 year relationship with his PCP and a 7 year relationship with his neurologist. Smiles, Nan

Just for the record, Dr. Brad Boeve and Dr. Carlos Schenk do respond to emails from their patients. Between annual visits I contact them by email to discuss behavioral changes and for them to coordinate drug adjustments. This went on a lot the first few years, and less so now. I would generally copy them both. Sometimes I'd get a reply from Schenk, for example, saying that Boeve was out of the country at a conference. They's discuss the matter when he returned, but in the meantime I could try ....

I have my cardiologist's email address, but I find it more satisfactory to call his nurse.

The clinic system we use has a website and a patient portal that allows you to send the doctors messages, but I am not sure the doctors always see them. I think that some of the responses I've gotten were canned replies from someone screening the messages.

To me, email contact makes a lot of sense, but I suppose it creates billing issues, too. If doctors have to (or want to) spend a fair amount of time helping their patients this way, how do they get paid for that time?