How to see your lab results from several MyChart accounts in one place
Your primary care doctor uses MyChart. So does the hospital where you had surgery, and the specialist across town. That is three logins, three apps, and three separate lists of lab results. Each one shows only the tests its own organization ordered or received, so no single account gives you the whole picture.
This is not a bug in MyChart. Each health system runs its own copy of Epic, with its own patient records, and MyChart is a window onto one of them. There are four ways to see everything together. They differ in how complete the result is and in who keeps the copy.
1. Link your accounts inside MyChart
Epic’s MyChart can link accounts from different organizations so you can see them in one place. Epic calls this Happy Together. If your providers use it, MyChart asks whether you want to link your accounts the next time you log in, and you can also search the MyChart menu for an activity called Link My Accounts. Once linked, Epic says the combined view covers allergies, appointments, care team members, health issues, medications, messages, and test results, with items from other organizations marked by an icon. (MyChart: Happy Together)
Best for: people whose doctors all use Epic and who are happy viewing results in MyChart.
What it misses:
- It is built around other MyChart accounts. If one of your providers uses a different portal, such as an Oracle Health (Cerner) or athenahealth portal, do not count on its results appearing.
- It is still a view, not a copy. If you stop seeing a provider and that account lapses, or the organization changes systems, its results go with it.
- Results still appear one test and one organization at a time. A cholesterol result from each system is listed, but not charted as one history.
2. Check for outside records your doctors already pulled in
Health systems on Epic exchange records with each other, and with many other systems, through a network Epic calls Care Everywhere. Records your care team pulled in this way can show up in your MyChart marked as coming from another organization.
Treat these as a bonus, not a complete history. Epic’s own page lists the reasons a record may not have been shared: the other organization uses paper records or a system that cannot share data, a local consent form is not on file, or your name or date of birth do not match between the two systems. Which results come over also depends on what your care team asked for.
Before you link: sharing works in both directions
Options 1 and 2 bring other organizations’ records into the MyChart you are looking at. The same connections carry your records out to them. That is usually what you want, since a clinician treating you can see what happened elsewhere, but it means everything in each record travels, not only the lab results you were after. A diagnosis entered once at one health system, even one you disagree with, can be read by clinicians at the others years later. How a diagnosis follows you explains how that happens and how to ask for a correction.
Some health systems let you limit it. MyChart keeps the organizations you have linked in an activity called Link My Accounts, where you can unlink any you no longer want connected, and some portals have a setting in the Sharing Hub to stop other organizations requesting your record. Neither recalls copies already shared, and the switches differ by health system. Can you opt out of automatic record sharing? walks through each layer and where an opt-out exists.
Pulling a copy into a place you keep yourself (option 4 below) works differently. It gives you your records without sending them to anyone else.
3. Collect them on your iPhone with Apple Health
Apple Health’s Health Records feature connects to many US health systems at once, including Epic organizations, and downloads your lab results to your iPhone. You add each organization separately, then see all of their results in one list on the phone. (Apple support: Health Records)
Best for: iPhone owners whose providers support Health Records.
What it misses: it runs only on iPhone and iPad, and results from labs or practices that do not connect never get there. If you want the results on a computer, see Apple Health lab results on a Mac or PC.
4. Pull a copy from each account into one place you keep
The most complete option is to get your results out of every account and keep them together yourself. Each MyChart offers the same routes, described step by step in how to download your lab results from MyChart:
- An app connection. Authorize an app to read your results from each MyChart, one health system at a time. The app gets every value with its unit, reference range, and date, as structured data.
- The health summary download. A ZIP file of your record from each account, in a standard format most health apps can read.
- PDFs of individual results, for a gap the other routes missed.
Do this once per health system. The result is a single history that does not depend on any one portal staying open to you.
Best for: anyone with results spread across systems that do not all link, or who wants to chart results over the years rather than look them up.
Which one to use
| Your situation | Use |
|---|---|
| Every provider uses Epic, and viewing in MyChart is enough | Link your accounts |
| You use an iPhone, and your providers support Health Records | Apple Health |
| Your providers use different systems, or you want a copy that lasts | Pull a copy from each account |
The options combine well. Linking accounts makes day-to-day messaging and scheduling easier, while a copy of your own is what survives a move, a change of insurer, or a health system switching software.
When the results are side by side
Once results from two or three health systems sit together, a few things need care:
- Duplicates. A test ordered at one health system and copied into another through record exchange can appear in both. The same goes for an outside lab’s report filed in your doctor’s chart. Keep one copy of each.
- Different reference ranges. Each lab sets its own, so a value flagged high at one system may be unflagged at another. Keep the range that came with each result. Why lab reference ranges differ explains why.
- Different test names. “Hemoglobin A1c”, “HbA1c”, and “Glycated hemoglobin” are the same test. Group them before you chart.
- Outside labs. Tests your doctor sent to Quest or Labcorp may be in their own portals too. See putting Quest and Labcorp results in one place.
Where HealthViewer fits
HealthViewer is a lab results tracker for Mac and Windows that does option 4 for you. Its health system connection signs in to each MyChart in turn, and to Oracle Health, athenahealth, and eClinicalWorks portals, and fetches your results. It also reads the MyChart ZIP and lab PDFs. Before anything is saved, it shows what it found and marks results you already have, so a test that came through two health systems is not stored twice. Every result then sits on one chart per test, across every health system, in an encrypted file on your own computer.
For what to do with the combined history, read how to track your lab results over time.
MyChart, Happy Together, and Care Everywhere are trademarks of Epic Systems Corporation. HealthViewer is not affiliated with or endorsed by Epic. Features vary by health system.