My wife is Brazilian and she actually prefers that way of getting lab results (get it yourself) to the American way: Results are sent directly to the doctor, to encourage you to schedule and pay for another doctor's visit to have the results read to you by a nurse.

In her opinion it was a violation of patient rights when we were unable to retrieve some lab results directly from the lab. In order to do that we would have to file some paperwork with the lab company and get the results mailed to us in 3-4 weeks.