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Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1999;125:471-472.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

For better or worse, I have had extensive experience with patient e-mail communications. For more than 4 years, I have had my e-mail address on all my clinical correspondence (eg, letters and business cards). As a practitioner in northern California, I reside in the midst of a hotbed of high-tech savviness and medical consumerism. While my feelings about e-mail communication with patients are decidedly mixed, ignoring the inevitability of this medium today is no more sensible than it was to ignore the telephone at the turn of the last century. Unless you are an otolaryngologist contemplating imminent retirement, eventual participation in e-mail is not a matter of if but when. Accepting this inevitability, I will make a few suggestions that may help neophytes to avoid some of the pitfalls.

1. Avoid accepting e-mail from patients until the key support individuals in your office (ie, nurses and scheduling and billing personnel) . . . [Full Text of this Article]