how to encourage providers to use the patient portal

To help, provide training and incentives for providers to connect with patients using the portal. Make sure providers acknowledge when patients use the portal, or continue to use it. Consider creating a canned phrase your providers can use to encourage continued use when they see a patient has used the portal.

Full Answer

How do you set up a patient portal?

May 13, 2016 · Providers must understand which patient populations are and are not likely to utilize the patient portal. By identifying populations with lower adoption rates, providers can target their engagement strategies to encourage portal adoption, helping them to deliver better care to their patients in the long-run.

What can I do on the patient portal?

Apr 25, 2018 · How To Encourage Patients To Use Your Patient Portal 3 Strategies For Increasing Patient Portal Usage In Your Optometric Practice. Ask. Sometimes all you have to do to get a patient to start using your patient portal is ask them. Whether you ask the... Promote At Every Opportunity. Not all of your ...

What are the advantages of patient portal?

Sep 19, 2017 · One provider says he reinforces a patient’s use of the portal by closing all messages with “Thanks for using the portal.” Some patients were concerned that PHMG would send them spam. When providers and staff tell patients about the portal, they assure them that the portal will only be used to respond to the patient’s message and to share important health …

What are the benefits of a patient portal?

Facilities where providers inform and encourage patients to use the portal have a much higher engagement rate than those who do not. Bring value. Providers should encourage their patients to access their lab results, send medical questions, and request appointments and medication refills through the portal. Reinforce.

How do you encourage patient portal?

The following strategies will help you engage your patients to use the portal.Mass enrollment. ... Get the whole office involved. ... Use every patient handout or marketing collateral as an opportunity to promote the patient portal. ... Market the benefits, not the features. ... Older patients may surprise you.More items...•May 28, 2019

What are some ways in which the patient portal can increase communication between providers?

Patients can use the patient portal to:E-mail questions.Schedule appointments.Request prescription refills.Feb 7, 2018

What are the benefits of using a 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

How do patient portals improve patient care?

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 can the patient portal affect patient satisfaction?

Our model shows that patient portal use can influence patient satisfaction through the mediating effects of gratification, health self-awareness, and health perception. ... Therefore, by promoting effective patient portal use and fostering patient perceptions, health care organizations can improve patient satisfaction.

How do healthcare providers communicate?

Here are five tips to help you communicate effectively with your doctors and other providers.Be prepared. Before making an appointment, make sure that doctors you are interested in seeing accept your health insurance. ... Share information. ... Ask questions. ... Get it in writing. ... Follow up.

Do patient portals improve outcomes?

Patient portal interventions lead to improvements in a wide range of psychobehavioral outcomes, such as health knowledge, self-efficacy, decision making, medication adherence, and preventive service use.

What is the goal of hie?

Electronic health information exchange (HIE) allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other health care providers and patients to appropriately access and securely share a patient's vital medical information electronically—improving the speed, quality, safety and cost of patient care.Jul 24, 2020

Why do some patients fail to participate in the use of the patient portal?

The reason why most patients do not want to use their patient portal is because they see no value in it, they are just not interested. The portals do not properly incentivize the patient either intellectually (providing enough data to prove useful) or financially.

How can patient compliance with portal registration be increased?

Hang posters in the office that promote the portal and include a QR code at the bottom, so patients can quickly navigate to the portal on their smartphones. Place printed portal instructions in your waiting room for patients to browse, which can prompt them to register while waiting.

What are some advantages to a healthcare facility's use of the patient portal function quizlet?

The patient portal supports two-way communication, which allows the patient to work with physicians between patient visits, request appointments, and receive reminders. These reminders can be for appointments, need for follow-up, and more.

What is the nurse's role in implementation of patient portals in healthcare?

Nurses see the portal as an additional service for patients, because it offers them the possibility for asking questions at any time and place suitable for the patient. Some nurses experience an increase in work load, because patients ask more non-urgent questions that otherwise would not be asked.Jun 15, 2012

Why do older patients use patient portals?

Just because your patients are older does not mean they are incapable of using the patient portal technology. The study published in the Annals of Family Medicine found that older patients and patients with chronic conditions were more likely to create a patient portal account, and many of these elderly patients often experience chronic conditions. The patient portal has become a fantastic tool for managing chronic conditions. Since these patients have more appointments to schedule and more lab results to view, the portal can ease these processes and keep them well-informed on their health. While they may take more time to learn the technology, elderly patients are often some of your most engaged patients, so continue to encourage portal use among these older patients as well as your younger demographic.

What is incentive in healthcare?

An incentive can motivate patients to sign up for and engage with the portal. To encourage use, patients who sign up for the portal within a certain time frame could be entered in a drawing to win a prize or a small discount on a bill for the first one they pay through the portal. If more patients make use of the portal to schedule appointments, ...

What is the goal of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015?

The goal of MACRA is to improve the quality of health care for Medicare patients, and this is accomplished by shifting the payment system from fee-for-service to care focused on results and value. MACRA financially motivates practices to engage patients in patient portal use in hopes that it will improve efficiency and overall population health. Although most practices agree this is a worthwhile endeavor, the process of getting patients to sign up and use the portal can be cumbersome and comes with many challenges.

What is a feature focused conversation?

A feature-focused conversation may be highlighting things like secure messaging and appointment scheduling. Let’s flip the conversation to focus on the benefits. Instead of secure messaging being the main idea you communicate to the patients, talk about being able to directly communicate with the provider at any hour. If you prefer to speed up the appointment scheduling process or make appointments with the office outside of business hours, the patient portal provides a great option for appointment scheduling in a way that may be more convenient for your patients. Framing the conversation in a way that brings into mind the benefits of using the portal will encourage patients to sign up for and use the portal.

Why do providers use patient portals?

This is mainly because providers are trying to build a relationship with their patients, not just bolster patient loyalty. For many providers, patient portal use is about building trust and enhancing care.

Why are patient portals important?

Research shows that when patients are able to see their own health data, they gain ownership of their own wellness and are better prepared to interact with their providers about their care.

Ask

Sometimes all you have to do to get a patient to start using your patient portal is ask them. Whether you ask the patient in person or through a patient recall message, you can persuade a lot of your patients to use the portal with little effort.

Promote At Every Opportunity

Not all of your patients will be as responsive to your initial request for them to use the patient portal. For patients who are more cautious about using the portal or seem hesitant, you’ll have to promote the benefits of the portal at every opportunity.

Give Incentives

If you’re still having trouble getting patients to adopt your patient portal, another tactic you could try is using incentives. Offering incentives for patients to access your patient portal could help drive utilization and could also help you promote different benefits of the portal.

When did PHMG start patient portal?

PHMG launched the patient portal in early 2010. As a first step, the physician champion piloted the portal for about 6 months before it was implemented in one clinic at a time. According to the physician champion, implementation was “easier than expected because everyone was already comfortable with eClinicalWorks, ...

What are the challenges of the portal?

One major challenge with the portal is the multiple step registration process . Patients provide their e‐mail address at the front desk and are given a password to register from home. Some patients fail to complete the registration process after leaving the clinic. Remembering and managing passwords and managing family accounts are also challenging for patients. For example, a parent may log in for one child and then ask questions about a second child. For providers and staff, a challenge is that there is no way to know whether a Web‐enabled patient actually uses the portal and there are no read receipts to confirm that patients have read a message.

What is the PHMG strategy?

PHMG had a strategy of ensuring that patients hear about the portal from multiple sources during each clinical visit. To execute this strategy, PHMG used several methods of communication, including:

When did PHMG implement EHR?

In 2007 PHMG implemented an EHR system, eClinicalWorks, as part of a strategy to improve quality of care and facilitate coordination of care across its multiple clinic locations. In preparing for implementation, PHMG proceeded with:

Is the portal easy to use?

It’s really very easy to use. If you use the Internet, you’ll most likely find the portal helpful and easy to navigate. They found that it is particularly persuasive when providers encourage patients to use the portal because patients trust providers and value their opinions.

What can providers do?

Influence. Providers and care teams have one of the most important roles in promoting portal adoption. Facilities where providers inform and encourage patients to use the portal have a much higher engagement rate than those who do not.

Add value by activating features that meet patient needs

You can assess which portal features have the most value by going straight to the source: your patients. Ask them about the features they want or find useful, and tailor your portal to meet their needs.

Integrate patient-generated health data

Technology has changed how patients monitor their own health. One in five people use technology to track their health from fitness monitors to home medical devices. Using patient-generated health data has big advantages. Studies show it:

External marketing tips

Make the message to enroll and use the portal highly visible in your practice by:

The importance of internal buy-in

Internal buy-in is just as important as your external marketing strategies. Once your staff is sold on the benefits of the portal, they will enthusiastically encourage patients to sign up. Some tips to facilitate staff buy-in include:

How to get the most value from an EHR?

To get the most value from an EHR, practices will need to invest time in training and preparation. Some customization of the system will likely be needed based on how the practice functions and the individual work styles of the various providers.

When did Dover Family Physicians adopt EHR?

Dover Family Physicians adopted an electronic health record (EHR) system in 2008 with a goal of improving the quality of patient care and especially strengthening preventive care services. The practice has focused on ways to use the EHR to engage patients and their family members in their health and healthcare through a patient portal implementation. The practice, located in Dover, Delaware, has four physicians and two physician assistants, and provides primary care to more than 800 patients weekly.

What are the limitations of EHR?

The limitations of the EHR and the patient portal have presented challenges, such as the inability to send clinical summaries to patients via the portal. The practice can only move ahead with certain aspects of patient and family engagement as quickly as the system is upgraded.

How long does it take for a nurse to respond to a patient?

The practice established standards for response times of within 4 hours for more urgent questions to 2 days for prescription refills

How to access a patient portal?

With a patient portal: 1 You can access your secure personal health information and be in touch with your provider's office 24 hours a day. You do not need to wait for office hours or returned phone calls to have basic issues resolved. 2 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. This can lead to better care and better management of your medicines. 3 E-mail reminders and alerts help you to remember things like annual checkups and flu shots.

What are the benefits of a patient portal?

Expand Section. With a patient portal: You can access your secure personal health information and be in touch with your provider's office 24 hours a day . You do not need to wait for office hours or returned phone calls to have basic issues resolved. You can access all of your personal health information from all ...

How much does an e-visit cost?

For minor issues, such as a small wound or rash, you can get diagnosis and treatment options online. This saves you a trip to the provider's office. E-visits cost around $30.