For Patients & Families

We ask patients to provide their email address when registering at Dana-Farber because we would like to send important information electronically. Email messages from Dana-Farber include:

• E-Bulletin for Patients and Families, which delivers short, timely news and key information, approximately once a month
• Occasional surveys about your experience as a patient
• Emergency updates about unplanned events, weather-related closings, or delays
• Registration and Billing information for insurance verification, account balance, and payment reminders

To opt out of Dana-Farber email publications

• Scroll down to the bottom of the email message and follow the instructions.
• If you do not have a copy of the email message, send an unsubscribe request to Dana-FarberContactUs@dfci.harvard.edu with "Opt out of E-Newsletter" as your subject. Be sure to include your name and email address.

Communication with your clinical team

For adult patients, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute supports the use of Patient Gateway. This is a secure and convenient way to email your clinician or request routine appointments, prescriptions, and referral authorizations. Learn more and enroll in Patient Gateway.

You can use regular email for occasional routine communication, but this does not provide the same level of security as Patient Gateway.

Security advantages of Patient Gateway messages

Patient Gateway offers a secure and convenient way to email your clinician or request routine appointments, prescriptions, and referral authorizations. Here are some of the differences between Patient Gateway and regular email.

Regular email

• Copies of messages may remain on the user’s computer or an employer's server.
• Messages can be mistakenly sent to an unintended recipient.
• The identity of someone who reads the messages can be unknown.
• Messages can be encrypted, but this doesn’t always happen. Patient Gateway messages

Patient Gateway messages

• Messages do not leave the secure Partners server. There are no copies on other machines.
• Messages do not reach parties outside the secure Partners system.
• The identity of the person who opens and reads the message is known and logged.
• Messages are always encrypted when they are transmitted.

Read information for patients who communicate with their doctors through email.