Patients including GP’s name in emails nearly twice as likely to get replies

By the Editorial Team · Sunday, August 30, 2026

Harvard researchers found that patients who include their doctor’s name in electronic messages are almost twice as likely to get a response, with personalized greetings increasing reply rates from 26% to nearly 40%. The study highlights how communication style can affect healthcare access and suggests addressing disparities in message writing to reduce inequities in patient care.

A study conducted by researchers at Harvard University has found that patients who include their doctor’s name in electronic messages are nearly twice as likely to receive a response compared to those who do not. The analysis examined 3.6 million patient messages from over 511,000 individuals, revealing that various aspects of communication style—such as length, formality, greeting, sentiment, and punctuation—affect the likelihood of receiving a reply.

The research leveraged data from the Mass General Brigham electronic health record system, demonstrating that messages beginning with a personalized greeting addressing the doctor by name had a response rate close to 40 percent. In contrast, messages lacking this form of address had a response rate of just 26 percent.

These findings arrive amid wider concerns about access to primary care in the United Kingdom. Surveys indicate that nearly half of Britons are unaware of their general practitioner’s (GP) name. A 2018 report showed that only 41 percent of British adults successfully secured a doctor’s appointment within a year, and that 13 percent who were unable to see their GP ignored their health problems, resulting in five percent requiring hospital treatment.

Currently, patients seeking advice for non-urgent issues in the UK are encouraged to complete an online form via the NHS app. This submission is then triaged by clinic staff, who decide whether to arrange a face-to-face or telephone appointment, send a text response, or refer the patient to alternative NHS services such as pharmacies.

The Harvard study also highlighted disparities linked to patient demographics. Individuals for whom English is not a first language, those with lower educational attainment, and non-white patients were less likely to receive replies to their messages. Lead researcher Dr. Mitchell Tang emphasized that differences in message writing style could introduce bias in how patient communications are triaged, suggesting that addressing these factors may help reduce inequities in care access.

The findings point to the importance of communication style in digital healthcare settings and may inform future strategies to improve patient-provider interactions and ensure more equitable response rates across diverse populations.

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