Didgets
The doctor is in — or rather, online via message service

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

They must be non-urgent messages, including appointment and cancellation requests, prescription renewals, referrals to other doctors and requests for lab results.You can also use it for quick, non-medical communiques: informing the doc of your progress, for example, or double-checking an appointment time. For anything requiring a quicker response time than 24-48 hours, you're advised to pick up an old-fashioned phone.

Lots of Hawai'i doctors are already listed, because the site is a project of the National Physicians DataSource, publishers of an MD directory called "The Little Blue Book." The same database was used for both this message center and the book's online twin, www.Docfinderplus.com.

Looking up your physician by metropolitan area, name and specialty is easy. Fill out the online form and his or her office staff will get your request by e-mail or fax. It's being touted as a boon to college students, who may find this method cheaper and simpler than playing long-distance, voice-mail tag, as long as they can wait a day or two.

And your mileage may vary. We tried it on one local doc, and we're still waiting.