NEW YORK – A new Internet service called MyMontefiore is helping people in the New York boroughs of Westchester and the Bronx get prescriptions filled, retrieve lab results and answer billing questions

Approximately 35,000 patients who now receive their care at Montefiore Medical Center use the online service – and more sign up each month, according to Montefiore executives.

A product of Atlanta-based Relay Health, MyMontefiore was introduced as a pilot program in 2006 and rolled out the following year to all 21 Montefiore Medical Group office sites in the Bronx and Westchester.

Insurers do not treat MyMontefiore as an office visit, so it is not a reimbursable consultation. Nor is it integrated with a patient's electronic medical record (though this is planned for the future).

Joyce Denis has been using MyMontefiore for two years. The 31-year-old Bronx resident has had two miscarriages and is six weeks pregnant. She is being treated by Nanette Santoro, MD, a reproductive medicine specialist, at Montefiore's Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Health.

"I think MyMontefiore is wonderful," she said. "I just log onto my home page and I ask the doctor by e-mail questions that I forgot to ask in the office visit, or if I'm worried that my hormone injections aren't working and if there is anything I can do at home. Or I e-mail requesting lab results, which come back within a day by e-mail. It saves a lot of time compared to playing phone tag. Everyone replies on their own time. It's also very private. I like that."

Anne and Thomas Kearney, both 82, who live in Yonkers, have been using the service for the past year to communicate with Jonathan Greenberg, MD, an internal medicine specialist at Montefiore, who practices in Eastchester. A few weeks ago, Thomas Kearney had lab tests and an X-ray, and Greenberg responded via e-mail with the results and a suggestion that he see a gastroenterologist.

"It's great," said Anne Kearney, "no telephone calls."

Doctors like it, too

The online service has proved popular among physicians as well as patients. Some 537 primary care practitioners and 125 specialists now use MyMontefiore, according to hospital officials.

"I can keep in touch with patients when I am traveling to conferences anywhere in the United States," said Santoro. "I can do simple things, like adjust medication dosages. I like that e-mail communication respects both my time and (Denis'). It's not for complex questions. You still have to have office visits; but it is very efficient and private for simpler things."

"I was very wary of using MyMontefiore at first," said Arthur Hopkins, MD, an internal medicine specialist at Montefiore who practices in Westchester. "I worried about a deluge of patient e-mail, but it didn't happen. The system is not perfect, but most patients are respectful of my time."

Greenberg, who specializes in care for the elderly, has 418 patients signed up to use MyMontefiore. He said he likes e-mail because of the clarity and directness of the messages, whereas phone messages are "not as clear."

"Having e-mail is of course more work, and comes on top of phone and personal visits and postal mail, but everyone in today's digital world has that," he said.