Through three related programs, 9,675 individuals were screened for hemoglobinopathy. The studied population was predominantly black (58%) and male (91%). Identified were 333 variants (3.4%), 90.7% of them in blacks. Two hundred occurred in hospitalized patients. Laboratory results were entered in medical charts in all but three instances. Annotation of the abnormality by a physician in the progress notes, discharge summary, or final coded diagnosis was made in 14.4% of the reviewed records. This included 46.7% of 15 patients with clinically manifested disease related to the hemoglobinopathy.