meaningful use patient portal access changes

With patient portal access to their electronic health record (EHR

), patients can communicate more quickly and easily with their healthcare providers, make appointments, get prescriptions refilled, and even make payments. They can let their physician know if they are having any problems or other issues with a medication.

Full Answer

How do you benefit from your patient portal?

Benefits of the Patient Portal. Communication Exchange. The first and one of the most important benefits of a patient portal is the increase in communication capability. Online Bill Management. Now providers can get more on-time payments and increased revenue with online bill management for patients.

How to get your patients to use your patient portal?

With a patient portal, you can:

• Make appointments (non-urgent)
• Request referrals
• Refill prescriptions
• Check benefits
• Update insurance or contact information
• Make payments to your provider's office
• Complete forms
• Ask questions through secure e-mail

What are the benefits of a patient portal?

eventually benefit the interactive patients engagement accessibility solutions in the market. • Access to the patient portal may improve patient engagement and change the way healthcare is delivered, healthcare improvements are associated with specific ...

What is the value of a patient portal?

Portals can yield actual value for providers by boosting clinical and financial outcomes. They have the potential to drive patient engagement, patient satisfaction, loyalty, retention, and health outcomes. This is how it can be done.

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.

How can patient portals be improved?

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. Put up flyers in the waiting room and exam rooms with information about accessing and using the patient portal.

What is the future of patient portals?

Patient portal adoption is growing, but beyond lab data access and some secure messaging functions, there is little drawing patients to these tools. Customizability based on patient preference or clinical need could help support patients' desires for using the tool as a bridge between them and their providers.

Why do patient portals fail?

Conversely, most portals greet patients with inadequate functionality, confusing formatting, and hard to understand health data. Patients often lose interest in these portals, unsure of how to take advantage of any of their promised offerings.

How do I make patient portals user friendly?

Offer forms and workflows that are easy to use and to customize. Ensure that the portal is affordable for providers. Make sure that the patient data is portable so that providers can share it with other providers. Provide system upgrades to keep the portal up-to-date.

How do you optimize patient portals for patient engagement?

Make enrollment open to all patients. Have staff manage portal workflow and communication before engaging providers directly. Aim to establish efficient workflows and policies, and avoid burdening providers with troubleshooting during initial rollout. The whole staff should be involved in promoting the patient portal.

Are patient portals secure?

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.

What is a reason for providers to be reluctant to use a 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.

What are the benefits and challenges of implementing a patient portal?

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.

Who isn't 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.

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.

Why do caregivers use patient portals?

While most caregivers adopt patient portals just because MU requires it, portals can bring value across clinical and financial dimensions. For many providers, Meaningful Use was the trigger to adopt patient portals, the main function of which is to give patients timely access to their health information. However, there is more to that.

How do portals help providers?

Instead, they need to see and harness the other benefits portals provide. Portals can yield actual value for providers by boosting clinical and financial outcomes. They have the potential to drive patient engagement, patient satisfaction, loyalty, retention, and health outcomes. This is how it can be done.

Why is it important to make portals work?

3. Make Portals Work Both Ways. To boost adherence to treatment plans, self-management, and health literacy, patients need to receive feedback from their providers.

Meaningful Use and Patient Electronic Access for EPs

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Meaningful Use and the Patient Portal

Some, but not all EHRs include the integrated presence of a patient portal to enable patients electronic access to some subset of their medical record. In the simplest terms patient portals, as defined by Wikipedia are “healthcare-related online applications that allow patients to interact and communicate with their healthcare providers”.

Stage 2 Attestation is Much More Manageable

Much of the analysis regarding Stage 3 has focused on streamlining the program. CMS narrowed the core objective list to 10, and the requirements to attest for Stage 2 have been significantly lightened.

Stage 3 Brings Back Tough Patient Engagement Requirements

The proposed rules for Stage 3 attempt to follow the theme of simplification applied to modify the Stage 2 rules. But just because something is easily understood doesn’t mean that it’s easily performed.

What is EHR incentive?

The Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs encourage patient involvement in their health care. Online access to health information allows patients to make informed decisions about their care and share their most recent clinical information with other health care providers and personal caregivers.

Does CMS require growth charts?

However, because this certification capability is not required, eligible professionals and hospitals do not need to generate and make growth charts available in order to meet the objective.

Can a patient opt out of health information?

A: A patient can choose not to access their health information, or “opt-out.” Patients cannot be removed from the denominator for opting out of receiving access. If a patient opts out, a provider may count them in the numerator if they have been given all the information necessary to opt back in without requiring any follow up action from the provider, including, but not limited to, a user ID and password, information on the patient website, and how to create an account.

Can a group practice share credit?

A: Yes. Eligible professionals in group practices are able to share credit to meet the patient electronic access threshold if they each saw the patient during the EHR reporting period and they are using the same certified EHR technology. The patient can only be counted in the numerator by all of these eligible professionals if the patient views, downloads, or transmits their health information online. See the FAQ.

Can a provider withhold information from a patient's website?

However, the provider may withhold any information from online disclosure if he or she believes that providing such information may result in significant harm.