Eight Pathology Result Problems Practice Managers Actually Call About
22 July 2026 · 7 min read
Pathology result problems come in more varieties than most practice managers realise. "Results not downloading" sounds like one problem, but the cause — and the fix — depends entirely on which of the following scenarios you are actually in. Here are the eight most common ones we encounter, in plain language.
1. Most results arrive, but one lab never does
What is happening: Each pathology provider — Dorevitch, Sonic, Melbourne Pathology, Australian Clinical Labs, and others — maintains its own electronic delivery connection. Having HealthLink or Medical Objects set up for one lab does not automatically include the others. If most results arrive but results from a specific collection centre or laboratory are always missing, that lab is either not connected electronically or has never been notified of your practice's routing details.
What to do: Identify which lab the missing results are coming from. Contact that lab's referring doctor support line and ask whether they have your practice registered for HL7 electronic delivery. If not, they will ask for your HealthLink or Medical Objects mailbox address and your provider numbers to set it up.
2. No results are downloading at all
What is happening: A complete failure to receive results points to one of three things: the integration was never set up in the first place, it was set up but the connection has broken (usually after a server change, a PMS reinstall, or a credential expiry), or the HealthLink/Medical Objects account has lapsed.
What to do: First, confirm whether your practice has an active HealthLink or Medical Objects account. If you are not sure, call HealthLink on 1800 188 969 or Medical Objects on 07 5456 6000 and ask them to check. If an account exists, ask them to verify the current routing configuration and confirm it matches your current software setup. If no account exists, this is where to start — the integration provider will walk you through registration and configuration.
3. Patients are not receiving results on their My Health Record
What is happening: A result arriving in your clinical software and that same result appearing in the patient's My Health Record are two separate processes. For a result to appear in My Health Record, three things must all be true: the patient must be registered for My Health Record and have their Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) verified in your system; your clinical software must be configured to upload documents to My Health Record; and the software must actually be performing the upload for each result type.
What to do: Check whether your clinical software has My Health Record uploading enabled. In Best Practice and Zedmed, this is a configuration setting that is sometimes left disabled after installation. Also confirm the patient's IHI is recorded and verified in their record — results cannot be uploaded without a valid IHI match. If uploading is enabled and IHIs are correct but patients still cannot see results, contact your software vendor's support line, as the issue may be with your practice's conformance registration with the Australian Digital Health Agency.
4. A newly onboarded doctor is not receiving results
What is happening: Electronic result routing is configured per provider number. When a new doctor joins your practice, their Medicare provider number is not automatically added to your HealthLink or Medical Objects routing configuration. Results ordered under their provider number arrive at the integration gateway but have no delivery address, so they are either bounced or dropped.
What to do: As part of every new doctor onboarding, contact your integration provider and add the new doctor's provider number to your practice's routing configuration. Also notify each pathology laboratory directly — most labs maintain their own referring doctor database separately from the integration routing, and they need to update their records too. This step is often missed because it is not part of the standard IT onboarding checklist.
5. A doctor who has left is still receiving results by post or fax
What is happening: When a doctor leaves a practice, the pathology laboratories still have that doctor listed as a referring provider at your practice address. Until the labs are notified of the change, they will continue delivering results — by whatever method is on file — addressed to that doctor.
What to do: Contact each laboratory and notify them that the doctor has left the practice. Ask them to update their records to remove that provider number from your practice address. If results should be redirected to a remaining doctor, specify the new provider number at the time of notification. This is a manual process that requires contacting each lab individually — there is no central notification system.
6. The practice wants to stop receiving paper and fax entirely
What is happening: Transitioning to fully electronic result delivery requires the practice to actively register for it. Laboratories do not automatically switch from fax or post to electronic delivery — they use whichever method was set up originally and will keep using it until instructed otherwise.
What to do: Register with HealthLink or Medical Objects if you have not already done so. Once your account is active and your software is configured to receive HL7 messages, contact each laboratory you receive results from and provide your electronic mailbox details. Ask them explicitly to switch your delivery method from fax/post to electronic HL7. Keep a record of each lab you contact and confirm the change has been made — most labs will update within a few business days, but it is worth following up.
7. Results are going to the wrong provider number
What is happening: HL7 result messages are routed using the provider number recorded on the original request. If a doctor's provider number is entered incorrectly in your clinical software, or if they have a location-specific provider number that differs from their general provider number, results will route to the wrong destination or fail to deliver.
What to do: Check the provider number recorded for the affected doctor in your clinical software's practitioner settings. Compare it against the number printed on their Medicare provider registration letter or their Services Australia provider portal entry. Location-specific provider numbers — which are different for each practice site — are the most common source of mismatch. Once corrected in the software, notify the relevant labs of the correct number so their records are updated.
8. The collection centre cannot scan the patient's electronic request
What is happening: Electronic requesting (eRequesting) is a separate registration from electronic result delivery. For a collection centre to accept and process an eRequest form printed from your software, the laboratory needs to have your practice registered for their specific eRequesting program. If the practice has not registered, the barcode or QR code on the request form will not match anything in the lab's system and the collection centre staff will not be able to scan it.
What to do: Identify which laboratory is involved. Contact their referring doctor support team and ask whether your practice is registered for eRequesting. If not, registration is usually straightforward — they will provide your software with a practice identifier that gets embedded in all future request forms. Note that each laboratory has its own eRequesting registration; being registered with Dorevitch does not mean you are registered with Sonic or Melbourne Pathology. If your practice refers to multiple labs, each one requires separate registration.
The common thread
Most of these problems have the same underlying cause: the pathology laboratory or integration provider has not been kept up to date with changes at your practice. New doctors, departing doctors, new software, a new server, a change of address, a desire to go paperless — none of these are automatically communicated to the labs. Every significant change in your practice requires a corresponding notification to the people handling your result delivery.
Keeping a simple log of which labs your practice uses and which integration provider handles your HL7 delivery makes it much easier to work through this list when something goes wrong. If you are not sure where to start, HealthLink and Medical Objects both have support teams who can audit your current configuration and identify gaps.
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