best patient portal features

by Dannie Predovic 8 min read

7 Core Patient Portal Features You Should Look For

31 hours ago Jul 24, 2019 · Top 7 patient portal features in action Appointment scheduling. Highlight: The drop-down menus in this user interface (UI) make it easy for patients to set... Viewing health information. Highlight: If a patient has questions about his/her results or wants tips from your team on... Bill pay/view. ... >> Go To The Portal


Top 7 patient portal features in action

  • Appointment scheduling. Highlight: The drop-down menus in this user interface (UI) make it easy for patients to set appointments with more than one physician and/or location.
  • Viewing health information. ...
  • Bill pay/view. ...
  • Prescription follow-up. ...
  • Filling out pre-visit forms. ...
  • Send messages to care team. ...
  • Medical history updates. ...

A robust patient portal should include the following features:
  • Clinical summaries.
  • Secure (HIPAA-compliant) messaging.
  • Online bill pay.
  • New patient registration.
  • Ability to update demographic information.
  • Prescription renewals and contact lens ordering.
  • Appointment requests.
  • Appointment reminders.

Full Answer

What do the best patient portals have in common?

Jul 24, 2019 · Top 7 patient portal features in action Appointment scheduling. Highlight: The drop-down menus in this user interface (UI) make it easy for patients to set... Viewing health information. Highlight: If a patient has questions about his/her results or wants tips from your team on... Bill pay/view. ...

How to get patients to sign up for patient portals?

Mar 30, 2022 · Intuitive Patient Portal User Interface. Your patient portal user interface must be 100% intuitive to serve as an effective tool for your patients. The design needs to feel easy on the eyes and make sense to users at first glance. All the navigation buttons must function as expected, competently leading users through every step of the task at hand.

How to optimize patient portals for patient engagement?

Sep 09, 2019 · Online Appointment Scheduling is one of the most important features on patient portal as it enables patients, regardless of their actual location, to make an appointment on a certain date or on those time slots that suit patients best.

How to access patient portal?

Bridge Portal The comprehensive patient portal is the company's core product and offers many features. Bridge Portal The comprehensive patient portal is the company's core product and offers secure patient-provider messaging, medical records access, lab results, prescription refill requests, portal self-registration, two factor authentication, appointment requests and …

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What are the 5 main features of the new healthcare portal?

5 Key Features Every Patient Portal Needs to OfferExcellent user experience. ... Branding flexibility. ... Flexible financing options. ... Loyalty rewards and incentives. ... Integration with existing systems.May 12, 2020

How do you improve patient portals?

Here are some ways to encourage patient enrollment:Include information about the patient portal on your organization's website.Provide patients with an enrollment link before the initial visit to create a new account.Encourage team members to mention the patient portal when patients call to schedule appointments.More items...•Jun 25, 2020

What is the most popular patient portal?

Top 10 Patient Portal Software By EMRSystemsEpic EHR Software's MyChart.athenahealth EMR Software's athenaCommunicator.PrognoCIS EMR Software.Cerner Specialty Practice Management Software.eClinicalWorks EMR Software's Patient Portal and Healow App.Greenway PrimeSUITE EHR Software.NextGen Healthcare EHR Software.More items...•Feb 7, 2020

What are the different types of patient portals?

There are two main types of patient portals: a standalone system and an integrated service. Integrated patient portal software functionality usually comes as a part of an EMR system, an EHR system or practice management software. But at their most basic, they're simply web-based tools.Feb 12, 2021

What are the benefits of the patient portal?

The Benefits of a Patient Portal You can access all of your personal health information from all of your providers in one place. If you have a team of providers, or see specialists regularly, they can all post results and reminders in a portal. Providers can see what other treatments and advice you are getting.Aug 13, 2020

What are the benefits and challenges of using patient portals?

What are the Top Pros and Cons of Adopting Patient Portals?Pro: Better communication with chronically ill patients.Con: Healthcare data security concerns.Pro: More complete and accurate patient information.Con: Difficult patient buy-in.Pro: Increased patient ownership of their own care.Feb 17, 2016

Do patient portals improve healthcare?

Background. Engaging patients in the delivery of health care has the potential to improve health outcomes and patient satisfaction. Patient portals may enhance patient engagement by enabling patients to access their electronic medical records (EMRs) and facilitating secure patient-provider communication.

How common are patient portals?

A subsequent Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) data brief, based on the HINTS survey, reported that as of 2018, 52% of patients had patient portal access. Only around 28% had accessed the portal within the last year.Dec 2, 2019

What is Cerner's patient portal called?

HealtheLife. The Cerner patient portal offering, HealtheLifeSM, is a web-based solution that enables interaction and engagement between health care organizations and people in their population.

What elements should be incorporated into a patient portal?

A robust patient portal should include the following features:Clinical summaries.Secure (HIPAA-compliant) messaging.Online bill pay.New patient registration.Ability to update demographic information.Prescription renewals and contact lens ordering.Appointment requests.Appointment reminders.More items...

Is a patient portal an EHR?

Electronic health record (EHR) patient portals provide a means by which patients can access their health information, including diagnostic test results. Little is known about portal usage by emergency department (ED) patients.

What is meaningful use?

'Meaningful Use' is the general term for the Center of Medicare and Medicaid's (CMS's) electronic health record (EHR) incentive programs that provide financial benefits to healthcare providers who use appropriate EHR technologies in meaningful ways; ways that benefit patients and providers alike.

What is a patient portal?

Patient portal is a website providing 24/7 access service to patients’ personal health information across any device. With a username and password,...

What are the benefits of patient portals?

Apparently, patient portals as software providing easily accessible information to users can bring considerable benefits both to physicians and pat...

How patient portals create value for patients?

Patients’ presence on patient portals unlocks for them the opportunities to: schedule appointments hassle-freeimprove their health awareness with a...

What features should be included in a patient portal?

Patient portal developers should certainly pay attention to including the following features into the functionality package of their product to ach...

How to improve patient portal?

In addition, patients’ presence on patient portals unlocks for them the opportunities to: 1 schedule appointments hassle-free 2 improve their health awareness with a wide range of educational resources 3 communicate with healthcare professionals directly 4 get valuable insights in their health history with a variety of data.

Why are patient portals important?

One of the top benefits of patient portal usage is dramatic increase of patient engagement due to opening various possibilities of involvement for patients in their healthcare upon patient portal activation and utilization.

What is the ultimate requirement for compliance with HIPAA regulations?

It should be noted that the ultimate requirement for compliance with HIPAA regulations demands that all patient portal vendors ensure the restricted access to protected health information by enabling the usage of a secure username and the strong password for each individual user.

What is online appointment scheduling?

Online Appointment Scheduling is one of the most important features on patient portal as it enables patients, regardless of their actual location, to make an appointment on a certain date or on those time slots that suit patients best.

Why is patient engagement important in healthcare?

According to the World Health Organization Report, patient engagement became an integral component of healthcare as patients once involved in the process are more capable of taking informed decisions in favor of healthcare awareness.

Why are portals beneficial?

Portals are beneficial in terms of managing the process of patient registration with ease. Patient portals enable easy-to-perform sign in to get access to the records or complete patient forms for having a test, getting insights with health history data, tapping in immunization records, or lists of prescribed medication lists.

What is a prescription refill?

Prescription Refills. The ongoing treatment, repeated medical procedures often require that the patient has access to Prescription Refills. By facilitating this process, healthcare professionals can expect improvement of patient engagement.

Know Your Options

Evaluate your options and create a long-term strategy. By assessing the full range of portal components, you can then determine which capabilities will best suit your practice.

Registering

Save the patient time in the office. When registration is completed prior to an appointment, patients spend less time in the waiting room and more time engaged in their care.

Secure Messaging

When your patient portal is integrated with your EHR system, secure messaging provides an efficient way to exchange information with both patients and other providers.

Providing Educational Materials

Diagnoses and treatment plans can be difficult for patients to understand and remember. In order to reinforce this information, practices have been giving patients supplemental printed materials for years. And now, with a portal, patients can access these materials online.

Ask for Patient Feedback

It is important to communicate with your patients and ask for feedback about your practice’s performance and services—including your patient portal. In order to get tips from them for making the portal more useful, Ms.

What is a petal appointment?

Instead of sending an appointment request to administrative staff, the Petal platform integrates with the existing system to enable the patient to make an appointment in real time. Administrative staff are no longer interrupted in their work, operations are simplified, and the patient care pathway is improved. Learn more about PetalBooking

What is Caspio platform?

Caspio is the world's leading LOW-CODE platform for building compliant patient portal applications without having to write code. Ranked a 'Leader' by Forrester Research, Caspio empowers you to collaborate efficiently, manage patients effectively, and deliver personalized care using a customizable all-in-one platform that's built to meet the specific needs of your organization; all without the IT overhead. See why Caspio is trusted by leading healthcare organizations. Try Caspio for FREE. Learn more about Caspio

What is simple practice?

Automate your billing, easily file insurance claims, and streamline your client communication with the Client Portal . Enable Online Booking to let your clients easily request appointments, and then approve or deny all requests. Plus, send paperless intakes to your clients, upload resources, send secure messages, and collect payments-all in one place. Learn more about SimplePractice

What is Ambra Health?

Ambra Health is a cloud-based medical data and image management company. Intuitive, scalable and highly interoperable, the Ambra cloud platform is designed to serve as the backbone of imaging innovation and progress for healthcare providers. Patient portal image enablement provides a simple alternative to image distribution via CD. Patients are given the ability to create an account to upload imaging, store their priors, and view imaging in a personal health record. Learn more about Ambra Health

What is cipher outreach?

With CipherOutreach, health systems scale targeted and purposeful outreach across the continuum of care encompassing preventive outreach, post-discharge and post-visit follow up, episodic outreach, and care recordings. Ranked as the KLAS Category Leader for Patient Outreach in 2018 and 2019, CipherOutreach's automated call and text programs ensure that all patients receive proactive outreach during critical care transitions. Learn more about CipherOutreach

What is intakeq?

IntakeQ provides beautiful and secure electronic intake forms for health professionals, enabling them to offer an amazing onboarding experience, while also optimizing and streamlining the intake process. As a bonus, IntakeQ also offers powerful practice management features, including scheduling, payment, appointment reminders, secure messaging, telehealth, invoicing and insurance billing. Affordable pricing, 14-day free trial, no credit card required, no software to install. Learn more about IntakeQ

What is patient portal?

Generally, part of the healthcare provider’s EHR, the patient portal allows patients to view their medical record, communicate with their provider, schedule and manage appointments, access health education material, check prescription refills, update their medical history and fill out intake forms, among other features.

How does a patient portal improve patient engagement?

Patient portals can foster patient engagement which, in turn, improves health outcomes and reduces healthcare costs by facilitating the process of communicating and sharing information between patients and providers. With better communication, patient engagement is enhanced as patients become more involved in their care and providers can also monitor patients more effectively and provide vital information to them when needed.

Why do we need mobile technology?

Mobile technology offers promise with regard to helping patients become more connected to more personalized interactions, it has been suggested that these apps need to be connected to personal health records to be effective and improve patient outcomes.

Is Apple Health Records beta?

An example of a recent effort to integrate mobile technology with patient portals can be found in the Apple Health Records beta program. On July 2, Apple announced the participation of healthcare organizations in the program which would enable patients to access health records on iPhone, directly in the phone’s Health app.

Is patient portal security important?

The security of data transmitted to a patient portal presents a major concern given that transmitted sensitive data to a patient who is accessing their records off-site can open up new avenues for hackers to breach patient privacy. Further, patient side security is also a significant concern as patients who fail to secure their login credentials may fall victim to unauthorized access to their personal health information. Lastly, as mobile access to patient portals increases, legal concerns have been raised as to whether mobile apps linked to a patient portal fall under HIPAA or a developer's own privacy policy, creating potential compliance traps for healthcare organizations.

Do providers use patient portals?

Providers generally adopt patient portals at a rate slightly below the EHR adoption rate. According to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 9 out of 10 health care providers that participated in HHS's Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Program offered their patients an EHR patient portal. However, the same report notes that only one-third of patients actually use the patient portal. In a 2017 survey conducted by the Medical Group Management Association, which examined how patients used patient portals, the results indicate 29% use patient portals to access test results, with 28% using the feature for bill payment, communicating with providers and medical staff, downloading or transmitting medical records, and scheduling appointments.

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