do we legally need to have patient portal

by Autumn Rippin Sr. 7 min read

Patient portals - an online tool for your health ...

12 hours ago Feb 04, 2022 · A patient portal is a website for your personal health care. The online tool helps you to keep track of your health care provider visits, test results, billing, prescriptions, and so on. You can also e-mail your provider questions through the portal. Many providers now offer patient portals. For access, you will need to set up an account. >> Go To The Portal


In addition to being a legal requirement, patient portals aim to improve patient-provider communication and patient education. This makes patients more informed about their health, making office visits more productive and beneficial for patients and providers, as well as improving care.Nov 7, 2014

What is a patient portal and is it safe?

Feb 04, 2022 · A patient portal is a website for your personal health care. The online tool helps you to keep track of your health care provider visits, test results, billing, prescriptions, and so on. You can also e-mail your provider questions through the portal. Many providers now offer patient portals. For access, you will need to set up an account.

When to grant patient portal access solely to minors?

Sep 29, 2017 · A patient portal is a secure online website that gives patients convenient, 24-hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an Internet connection. Using a secure username and password, patients can view health information such as: Recent doctor visits Discharge summaries Medications Immunizations Allergies Lab results Some patient portals …

Are patients and physicians ready for online portals in healthcare?

Dec 02, 2021 · In addition, this allows you to see more patients every day. If your patients have pressing questions, they can ask for more details via the patient portal or wait until their next visit. Notable Challenges. While many people have used a patient portal by now, they have mixed reviews at best.

What do I need to use a patient portal?

Patient Portals: The Good, the Bad, and the Inevitable. Some physicians and patients have been reticent to embrace online portals, but the changing nature of health care will accelerate the ...

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Why is patient portal important?

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

Why do patients not use patient portals?

The researchers found no demographic differences among nonusers who said that a technology hurdle, lack of internet access or no online medical record was the reason why they did not make use of a patient portal.May 14, 2019

What percentage of patients use patient portals?

FINDINGS. Nearly 40 percent of individuals nationwide accessed a patient portal in 2020 – this represents a 13 percentage point increase since 2014.Sep 21, 2021

What is the difference between personal health records and patient portals?

A tethered PHR, as defined by the ONC, is an online interface tied to an EHR with which patients may view and sometimes interact with their health data. ... A patient portal is a secure online website that gives patients convenient 24-hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an Internet connection.Feb 17, 2017

Do doctors like patient portals?

Perception of Portal Use by Patients. Providers were even more positive about their perceived comprehensive impact of the portal on patient care. The respondents were particularly enthusiastic about their believe that it improved patient care (60%); and that it improved patient adherence (52%) (Figure 2).

Do patients like patient portals?

Eight studies reported that patients or their caregivers want more portal education, training, or support. Two studies found that their participants want human connection as they learn about the portal and how to use it, as well as when they encounter issues.Jan 25, 2021

What are the disadvantages of patient portals?

Even though they should improve communication, there are also disadvantages to patient portals....Table of ContentsGetting Patients to Opt-In.Security Concerns.User Confusion.Alienation and Health Disparities.Extra Work for the Provider.Conclusion.Nov 11, 2021

How safe is patient portal?

Patient portals have privacy and security safeguards in place to protect your health information. To make sure that your private health information is safe from unauthorized access, patient portals are hosted on a secure connection and accessed via an encrypted, password-protected logon.

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.

What information is excluded from patient portals?

However, it also had to exclude behavioral health, protected minor visits, research records, business records, and other sensitive record content. The portal automatically downloads or excludes documents based on type or provider, says Meadows, who helped solidify a process for integrating the portal with the EHR.

What is a standalone patient portal?

Standalone Patient Portals Standalone systems usually include more features and do not rely on sunk costs to keep their contracts. Additionally, third-party vendors are often more attentive to detail and offer a better user experience, but they are not without limitations.

Is a patient's personal health record a legal document?

A PHR is a record controlled by the individual and may include health information from a variety of sources, including multiple health care providers and the patients themselves. The PHR is separate from, and does not replace the legal record of any health care provider.

What is meaningful use stage 2?

In particular, meaningful use Stage 2 is pushing for healthcare providers to provide more immediate access, particularly the ability to view, download, and transmit information through what is normally expected to be some sort of patient portal.

Can a parent access a minor's medical records?

Healthcare providers can choose to give parents access to the minor's records via a patient portal, but the providers should consider segregating certain information to make those confidential services inaccessible by the parent, Greene says.

TOL Secure Patient Portal

The TOL Patient Portal (also referred to as "TRICARE Online" or "TOL") is the current secure patient portal that gives registered users access to online health care information and services at military hospitals and clinics.

MHS GENESIS Patient Portal

MHS GENESIS is the new secure patient portal for TRICARE. It will eventually deploy to all military medical and dental facilities worldwide and replace the TOL Patient Portal.

Using MHS GENESIS and TOL Together

If you’re already a registered user on the TOL Secure Patient Portal, MHS GENESIS works much the same way.

Log in to your Secure Patient Portal

If your military hospital or clinic uses TOL, click here to log in: >>TRICARE Online

What is the 21st Century Cures Act?

A word on the lingo: The 21st Century Cures Act, a bi-partisan law passed in 2016, includes a whole lot of stuff. The part about the electronic sharing of records is in the ON C Cures Act Final Rule, or the Cures Rule. I’ll use the Cures Rule from here on since that’s what we’re talking about.

When did the note transparency movement start?

The note transparency movement actually dates back to 2010 when the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Geisinger Health System in rural Pennsylvania, and Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center launched a study allowing 20,000 patients to read their clinic notes (funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio, Drane Family Fund, and Koplow Charitable Foundation).

Can you see a clinic note?

And not just see them, but have them. When a doctor or practitioner has completed a note it will be accessible to patients through their secure, online portal.

What is the cure rule?

The Cures Rule does allow clinicians and hospitals isolated exceptions around note and information release to account for flexibility, privacy and security. Like when the information in the note could lead to harm (in the case of suspected medical abuse in a child, for example).

Is opening notes an intentional process?

As a lot of systems are figuring out, opening notes to patients doesn’t happen overnight. Opening notes is an intentional process. It takes a lot more than just flipping a switch. It involves careful consideration of hospital’s specific needs, their health IT infrastructure and its culture. Most enterprise EHR platforms have the technical capacity to do this built in. That’s probably the easier part.

What is the fine for texting?

A practice that knowingly violates the TCPA can incur fines of up to $1,500 per text message. Meanwhile, statutory damages ...

Do you need consent for text messages?

You need consent if there’s any type of marketing in a message (despite the presence of health info), so err on the side of caution. Include an opt-out message in all texts. Again, this is part of the law for marketing messaging, so why not just make it a standard practice in all your messaging.

Is texting the best way to communicate?

Heck, for most people it’s the best way. Studies have found that texting is the most preferred form of communication in the United States. It’s quick, it’s easy, there’s no prolonged dialogue — of course people love texting! But here’s the deal: though convenient, texting’s not all fun and games. You can’t go messaging patients all willy-nilly.

Is texting a game?

But here’s the deal: though convenient, texting’s not all fun and games. You can’t go messaging patients all willy-nilly. There are actually federal regulations in place to save us all from receiving a deluge of unwanted text messages. Text messaging is covered under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

Can you text without consent?

The answer is a resounding yes! Medical messages are completely okay, as they are exempt from the written consent rule. In other words, if you have a patient’s phone number, you can lawfully text them information without consent so long as the message pertains to their health.

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The Role of Patient Portals

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MARIANNE MCGEE:What are patient portals? What sorts of organizations are launching them, and why are they important from a regulatory standpoint? ADAM GREENE:Patient portals usually refer to some way for a patient to be able to view some portion of the electronic health records ... of a healthcare provider. ... You c
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Privacy Challenges with Patient Portals

  • MCGEE: What do you think are the biggest privacyand security challenges related to patient portals? GREENE: I think one of them is authentication. How do you know that the patient is who the patient really says he or she is? There are a number of different strategies for trying to tackle that. Another privacy and security challenge here is that you have an Internet-facing website, ess…
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Authentication For Portal Use

  • MCGEE:What are the various ways that individuals can be credentialed and authenticated for accessing patient portals? GREENE:There are two stages here; the initial identity-proofing and the subsequent authentication every time someone logs into the patient portal. The identity-proofing normally happens either in-person or online. The in-person part could happen as part of the regis…
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Why only Passwords?

  • MCGEE:Why do you think most organizations that have a patient portals will go with the username and password only? GREENE:Difficulty and lack of demand. I think there is going to be a minority of patients who may want the more robust features of multi-factor authentication, and may want to feel confident that their information is not going to be accessible to others based on just the …
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Minors' EHRs

  • MCGEE:What are the privacy and security challenges involved with providing access to health records of minors via the patient portals? GREENE:This is a very tough situation. You're going to have, under the law, some minors who have their parent or guardian as their personal representative under HIPAA who has the right to access their information. But, minors may be a…
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Adult Caregivers

  • MCGEE:What are the privacy and security challenges involved with giving access to elderly patients' information to say, an adult children? GREENE: I think it's a great idea. I think you definitely want to give the tools so that the patient does not have to share their username and password, but instead could have a greater level of control by creating a delegate account wher…
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Other Methods of Access

  • MCGEE:How do patient portals compare with other methods of providing patients with access to their health information, such as secure e-mail? GREENE:I think it is much easier to use. It will also link in sometimes with these other practices. So for example, the patient portal may also be a messaging portal where a secure e-mail is received by an individual. They receive an unsecure e …
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Biggest Emerging Threats

  • MCGEE:What do you think the biggest emerging privacy and security threats for portals? GREENE:I think as you get more of these, there will be more stories of vulnerabilities that have been identified. If the individual changes the URL by one number, and they are able to see someone else's information, I think we'll see security challenges on that front. I think we're going to see a c…
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