best practices yakima patient portal

What is a patient portal?

The patient portal is an import-ant tool in the modern practice tool-box. By replacing real-time patient conversations with a trusted patient portal, patients can get the informa-tion they need, when they need it. Moreover, when properly implement-ed, this patient support comes at a nominal cost to providers. From a customer relationship management perspective, patient portals promise to increase patient loyalty to the prac-tice and increase the patient’s com-mitment to taking responsibility for his or her own healthcare. By pro-viding a patient portal with the fea-tures discussed in this article, you can maximize the odds that your patient portal will be embraced by your pa-tients, resulting in a win–win for your patients and your bottom line. PM

What is full EMR integration?

Ideally, full inte-gration includes patient-specific FAQs on their diagnosis, the treatment —in-cluding side effects, and other infor-mation the patient needs to be a full participant in his or her healthcare.

Is a practice portal HIPAA compliant?

From a legal perspective, your practice portal must comply with usual HIPAA rules, in terms of main-taining privacy and security of patient data. However, in addition to this ob-vious requirement, your practice por-tal should provide patients with the sense that their information is secure and their records are private. Your portal vendor can create this sense of security by emphasizing the impor-tance of adequate password protec-tion, stored questions and patient an-swers, and other techniques employed by banks for their secure portals.