healthaffairs patient portal

by Aileen Wisozk 8 min read

Provider Obligations For Patient Portals Under The 21st …

20 hours ago  · Two-thirds use the Internet, up from 12 percent in 2000. By 2017, 42 percent of adults ages 65 and older had smartphones, as compared to 18 percent in 2013. Rates of Internet and smartphone use ... >> Go To The Portal


How do patient portal users access their health information in 2020?

★ About one in five patient portal users (22%) accessed their health information using both a smartphone health app and a computer in 2020. ★ Patient portal users most commonly accessed their health information through a computer (83%) – six in 10 portal users accessed their health information using only this method.

What can I do in the patient portal?

Through the Patient Portal, you can: Manage My Health Information. With FollowMyHealth® you can manage your health information and communicate with providers in a secure, online environment - 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. Once you create your account, you will be prompted to search for and connect with available providers in your area.

What is the difference between individual and patient portal users?

Individuals who access their portal at least once in the past year are referred to as “patient portal users”. Patient portal users who access their health information using multiple methods access their portal more frequently than those who use only one method.

What is the difference between HIPAA access right and patient portal?

The shift in patient portals reflects a fundamental difference between the information blocking rule and the access right that has long existed under HIPAA. The HIPAA access right, which was adopted in regulation in 2000, reflects the older model of medical records.

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Who isnt using patient portals and why?

Sixty-three percent reported not using a portal during the prior year. In multivariable analysis, we found that nonusers were more likely to be male, be on Medicaid, lack a regular provider, and have less than a college education, compared to users.

How do you engage patients in patient portal?

Here are nine ways to improve patient portal engagement.Enroll at the first appointment. ... Auto-enroll to schedule online appointments. ... Include a link to the portal when patients sign in. ... Link your portal sign up on all correspondence. ... Optimize for desktop and mobile. ... Empower all staff to sign patients up. ... Offer incentives.More items...•Aug 12, 2019

What is EMR patient portal?

A marketing website that drives your practice goals. A patient portal that is accessed through a secure login. It includes a Personal Health Record (PHR) and allows your practice and patients to exchange information securely and in full compliance with HIPAA.

What is patient portal app?

Patient portal apps typically allow patients to share their health records with providers, enabling them to gain a longitudinal view of their patient's health history. Like Epic's MyChart, some apps even allow patients to provide temporary access to their medical records via a code.Feb 14, 2022

How do you navigate a patient portal?

0:023:43Navigate the Patient Portal - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipThis video will show you how to navigate through the patient portal. And locate all of your child'sMoreThis video will show you how to navigate through the patient portal. And locate all of your child's medical record information.

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

What should be included in 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...

What types of patient portals are there?

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

How does patient portal improve patient care?

Better Patient-Physician Relationships Patient portals provide the ability for patients to have 24-hour access to connect with their provider by reviewing patient health information (PHI), asking and answering questions, and reviewing notes, making the patient-physician relationship closer than ever.Dec 8, 2017

Why do patients not use patient portals?

For some people, they avoid using the portals altogether for reasons like security issues, low health literacy, or lack of internet. Even for those who do access their accounts, there are still other disadvantages of patient portals.Nov 11, 2021

What is portal message?

Portal messages are a secure, optional messaging tool built into the patient portal. Patient portal users can exchange messages with their pediatric practice, and the practice can receive and send portal messages with PCC EHR or pocketPCC.Jul 1, 2021

What makes the patient portal different from a PHR?

The Portal is controlled by the source system (EMR/EHR/Hospital). On the other hand, the Personal Health Record (PHR) is more patient centric, is controlled by a patient or family member, and may or may not be connected to a doctor or hospital (i.e. it may be tethered or untethered).Sep 6, 2012

Latest From The Journal

The February 2022 Issue of Health Affairs is now available. In this theme issue, a number of articles orient the reader to the complex relationship between racism and health, as well as featuring new evidence, analysis, and narrative on the topic of racism and health. Visit the Racism & Health theme issue page to view related content.

Policy Spotlight: One-On-One with Meena Seshamani

Preview Short Description Join Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil for a Policy Spotlight event featuring Meena Seshamani, Deputy Administrator & Director, Center for Medicare, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), US Department of Health and Human Services.

Policy Briefs

Health Policy Briefs examine complex questions currently being debated in health policy and health services research. The health policy briefs provide a clear, comprehensive, and impartial overview that anyone can use to quickly get up to speed.

Podcasts

Health Affairs, the leading journal of health policy research, offers a nonpartisan forum to promote analysis and discussions on improving health. With our podcasts, we go beyond the papers to bring you insightful discussions on the latest news and research affecting health policy today.

Podcast: Behind The Pages: Racism and Health Issue

Health Affairs' Jessica Bylander and Leslie Erdelack discuss the publication process, main findings, and research insights from the Health Affairs February 2022 theme issue on racism and health.

Podcast: Piecemeal: Primary Care Pivoting In The Age of COVID-19

In this episode of Piecemeal, Dr. Lalita Abhyankar discusses the ongoing organizational pressures that independent primary care practices face in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and how some pivoted their business models.

Lessons From More Than A Decade In Patient Portals

Many of us look forward to a time when the experience of interacting with our health care providers will be as consumer-friendly and technology-enabled as, for example, using an ATM or Uber.

Early Implementation And Growth Of Patient Portals

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the earliest adopters of patient portals began offering electronic tools for patient-centered communication, often “tethered” to their integrated electronic health record system.

Lessons Learned

From more than a decade of experience engaging patients online, we offer four key lessons.

Moving Forward

Within 10 years, Kaiser Permanente’s patient portal has become a cornerstone of how we deliver care. According to our research, patients using the portal reported feeling:

Summary

Individuals’ rates of being offered and subsequently accessing their patient portal increased significantly between 2018 and 2019, but did not change in 2020.

Data Source and Methods

Data are from the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS).

Suggested Citation

Johnson C, Richwine C, & Patel V. (September 2021). Individuals’ Access and Use of Patient Portals and Smartphone Health Apps, 2020. ONC Data Brief, no.57. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology: Washington DC.

Hospitals

With FollowMyHealth® you can manage your health information and communicate with providers in a secure, online environment - 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. Once you create your account, you will be prompted to search for and connect with available providers in your area.

Medical Records

At Health First, medical records are retained in various formats, including film, microfiche, paper and electronic. The Health Information Management (HIM) Department collects, manages, protects and disseminates the health information of our patients, while ensuring the information is complete and accurate.

Pay My Bill

At Health First, you can make a secure one-time payment or create an account for 24/7 access to account management.

Where is Your Vaccine Record?

If you want to go out to eat or get a booster shot, you might need your COVID-19 vaccine card. Get step-by-step directions on how to find your vaccine record online.

Better Than a House Call

House calls are mostly a thing of the past, but you can still see your doctor from home. With internet access and a secure video connection, VA Video Connect makes it possible.

The Hip Hinge and Your Lower Back

Your hip hinge helps you sit down, squat, and even pick up your grandkids. Hips are important to many daily movements and help support your lower back.

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Origins of The Portal Push

The Extent of Providers’ Obligations

  • In effect, the ONC is interpretating the 21st Century Cures Act to mean that patients have the right to obtain their data from health care providers as quickly as possible. Therefore, patient portals—which permit patients to see a significant trove of information about themselves as soon as they log in to the sites—have become a key tool in meeting...
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The Future of Portals

  • So far, there has been no enforcement of the information blocking rule. The HHS Office of Inspector General issued a proposed regulation to enforce information blocking requirements in 2020, but that rule has yet to be finalized. Moreover, the proposed rule only addressed actions against health information exchanges and health information technology vendors, not against pr…
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Study Data and Methods

  • Data Source
    We used data from the 2017 Health Information National Trends Survey 5 (HINTS 5) Cycle 1, administered to 3,285 US adults by the National Cancer Institute in the period January–May 2017 to study people’s access to health-related information. Additional information about the survey d…
  • Study Sample
    We restricted our analysis to people who reported making a medical visit during the year before the survey (84.5 percent of the sample) and who reported having health insurance coverage (94.0 percent of the sample). Previous research on nationally representative samples has not sp…
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Study Results

  • We found that in 2017, 63 percent of insured adults with a health care visit in the previous twelve months reported not using an online patient portal (exhibit 1). Bivariate analyses show that compared to users, nonusers were more likely not to have been offered access to a portal and to be male and age sixty-five or older, have less than a college...
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Discussion

  • Despite significant investments in telehealth to engage patients in their care, about two-thirds of insured US adult patients were not using an online patient portal in 2017. Nonusers were more likely to be male, have less than a college degree, be on Medicaid, and lack a regular provider. These factors, along with race, were also related to whether a patient reported receiving an offe…
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Policy Implications

  • Our findings have several policy implications. First, socioeconomic and other disparities exist in the use of online patient portals—an important new technology with real potential to improve health and health care. Patients with the lowest education levels, those insured by Medicaid, and those without a regular provider are less likely to report that they were offered access to an onlin…
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Conclusion

  • Using the latest national data, we found that almost two-thirds of insured adults who had had a previous health care visit did not use an online portal in 2017. Those who had only a high school education, did not have a regular provider, and had Medicaid insurance were much less likely to use a portal. Because online patient engagement yields important benefits, it is vital to continue …
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Acknowledgments

  • Denise Anthony was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. TWC SBE CNS-1408730). The authors thank the editors and reviewers at Health Affairsfor helpful advice on the manuscript.
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Notes

  1. 1 Blumenthal D, Tavenner M. The “meaningful use” regulation for electronic health records. N Engl J Med. 2010;363(6):501–4. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar
  2. 2 National Learning Consortium. How to optimize patient portals for patient engagement and meet meaningful use requirements [Internet]. Washington (DC): HealthIT.gov; 2013 May [cited 2018 Oct 26]....
  1. 1 Blumenthal D, Tavenner M. The “meaningful use” regulation for electronic health records. N Engl J Med. 2010;363(6):501–4. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar
  2. 2 National Learning Consortium. How to optimize patient portals for patient engagement and meet meaningful use requirements [Internet]. Washington (DC): HealthIT.gov; 2013 May [cited 2018 Oct 26]....
  3. 3 Steinbrook R. Health care and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. N Engl J Med. 2009;360(11):1057–60. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar
  4. 4 Delbanco T, Walker J, Bell SK, Darer JD, Elmore JG, Farag Net al. Inviting patients to read their doctors’ notes: a quasi-experimental study and a look ahead. Ann Intern Med. 2012;157(7):461–70....