patient portal reduces health care costss

As such, patient portals are a potential source for high-value, high-quality care at sharply reduced cost, compared to traditional patient care; e.g., office visits and phone consultations.

Full Answer

How can we improve patient outcomes in healthcare?

Optimize coding and billing, avoid lost revenue, establish models to improve health outcomes, and reduce the cost of care and reimbursements by harnessing value sets. Reduce readmissions and unnecessary procedures by educating members at scale with targeted and personalized portal content, such as diabetes or pain management programming.

How can we reduce health care costs?

Reducing the likelihood of catastrophic illness and improving health outcomes is the most effective strategy for health care cost reduction. Even though the ACA requires that all health plans cover preventive medicine, most Americans miss out on these services.

How can technology help drive better patient-centered care?

With a suite of tools designed to drive better and more efficient patient-centered care, these solutions can help. Optimize coding and billing, avoid lost revenue, establish models to improve health outcomes, and reduce the cost of care and reimbursements by harnessing value sets.

How can Pharmacists help address rising health costs?

Addressing rising health costs requires standardization, consistent evidence-based information, and actionable data in order to identify areas of opportunity. Research shows that healthcare teams with pharmacists produce a shorter length of stay, lower drug cost per admission, and minimal mortality.

Do patient portals save money?

Limit Operating Costs and Save Money In addition, patient portals help to save money. Portals can save time and money by automating basic administrative tasks. Moreover, physician's time is critical but also limited. It's critical to provide the most efficient use of their time while at work.Jun 8, 2021

What are the benefits of the 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

Why is patient portal important in healthcare?

Portals can increase patient loyalty. The ongoing relationship and communication that occurs outside of appointments encourages patients to feel cared for and to remain loyal to your practice. Increase your value. Patients value the easy access to information and direct communication that comes with portal use.

Does patient engagement reduce healthcare costs?

Investments in patient engagement have been argued to show promise as a means to improve quality and decrease the costs of care (Cosgrove et al. 2013).Apr 20, 2017

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 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 do patient portals affect nursing?

Takeaways: Patient portals facilitate patient engagement in healthcare decisions, improve communication, and streamline care. Less than one-third of patients access patient portals to view their medical data. Nurses can improve patient portal use by explaining the benefits and providing education.Dec 20, 2021

What should be 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 is the goal of hie?

The goal of health information exchange is to facilitate access to and retrieval of clinical data to provide safe, timely, efficient, effective and equitable patient-centered care. HIE can also be used by public health authorities to assist in the analysis of the health of populations.

How does patient engagement reduce costs?

By engaging the patient at the point of care, while in the pharmacy, and in follow-up communications via patient portal and secure messaging, providers can reduce some of those costs by encouraging their patients to fill and take their prescriptions.Jun 17, 2016

Does patient engagement improve outcomes?

Health experts suggest that patient engagement can lead to better health outcomes and increased participation in the healthcare decision-making process.May 18, 2021

What is patient engagement?

"Patient engagement" is a broader concept that combines patient activation with interventions designed to increase activation and promote positive patient behavior, such as obtaining preventive care or exercising regularly.Feb 14, 2013

How does personalized patient education save money?

A personalized patient education solution can save the practice money by reducing patient education handouts’ printing costs. Providing patient education also improves [¹] their levels of knowledge, medication or treatment adherence, satisfaction, and clinical outcomes.

Why is bidirectional patient messaging important?

Bidirectional patient messaging through patient portal adoption is one of the best ways to educate patients, build patient trust, and provide patients with opportunities to contact you with questions.

Why is patient engagement important?

Tools for patient engagement provide an opportunity for healthcare organizations to increase patient engagement, promote loyalty, better manage costs, and increase workflow efficiencies.

How does patient engagement help in healthcare?

Patient engagement — involving your patients in their healthcare journey through ongoing education, information, and shared decision making — has a lot of potential for improving your outcome indicators and reducing costs. As a healthcare provider, you have a number of opportunities to achieve these positive results with your patients before, during, and after the appointment. Utilizing tools for patient engagement, like patient-specific patient education software and patient portal platforms, can lead to provider optimization. With these healthcare patient engagement solutions, healthcare providers have the tools to achieve the following goals: educate patients, manage prescription medications, communicate between office visits, send health risk assessments, and engage in shared decision-making.

What is patient engagement?

Healthcare providers can create text or mobile app reminders to fill prescriptions and take meds, engage patients in tracking side effects and changes in how they feel, and use the platform to check in with patients about their medications between appointments. These tools for patient engagement allow you to increase compliance with regimens that are working well and act quickly to modify the ones that aren’t.

Addressing the cost of healthcare delivery

As the path out of sky-high healthcare costs, the shift to value-based care and holistic patient-centered care models has warranted a change to how hospitals and health systems approach care delivery.

Resources on reducing healthcare costs

Addressing rising health costs requires standardization, consistent evidence-based information, and actionable data in order to identify areas of opportunity.

Cost reduction solutions for health systems

With tools for payers and providers alike, our expert solutions give stakeholders the real-time clinical and operational insight they need to make cost-effective and patient-centric decisions. Solutions include clinical decision support, clinical workflow tools, and more.

Learn more about reducing the cost of care

Our Wolters Kluwer experts, clinicians, and support teams are committed to helping health systems, hospitals, and payers address the rising costs of health and patient care. Explore related content that can help inform and support your cost reduction strategies while improving patient outcomes.

Overview

With the introduction of electronic health records (EHRs), electronic medical records (EMRs), and medical device app development, patient portals are used increasingly by healthcare organizations of various sizes and specialities.

When did Patient Portals Start?

Patient portals started after the introduction of Electronic Health Records. The first EHRs, which would eventually come packed up with patient portals, started developing in the 1960s.

What are Some Basic Patient Portal Features?

Patient portals are designed to help patients securely view their health data, consult a healthcare provider, schedule their appointments, and do more to be active participants in their health care process.

Why is Patient Portal Important?

By providing easily accessible health information, a patient portal gives considerable benefits to both patients and doctors. One of the remarkable benefits of a patient portal is patient engagement, which allows patients to actively engage in their healthcare.

What Types of Patient Portals are there?

There are two main types of patient portals: an integrated service and a stand-alone system. Both are web-based tools, so let’s learn about their specifics:

How is Patient Portal Implementation Done?

The implementation of patient portals involves different steps to be followed- from research to final implementation and execution of them as a system. Here are six steps to implement a patient portal:

What are Patient Portal Regulations?

Organizations must be aware of patient portals regulations before they introduce one within their system.

1. Prioritize Preventive Care

Preventive care involves medical care, dental exams, interventions, procedures, and treatment designed to prevent disease. Reducing the likelihood of catastrophic illness and improving health outcomes is the most effective strategy for health care cost reduction.

2. Negotiate a Lower Medical Bill

Collecting medical debt is an administrative cost that many health care delivery organizations would like to avoid when possible. This offers an incentive for health care consumers to negotiate lower prices. Use the Compare.com pricing tool to find the lowest prices on procedures nearby to get a baseline that you can use for bargaining.

3. Avoid Using Emergency Rooms for Non-Emergencies

Your local hospital emergency room (ER) is easily accessible because it is always open and won’t turn you away if you don’t have health insurance. This explains why millions of Americans make unnecessary ER visits every year.

4. Look for a Free Clinic

Did you know that there are thousands of free and low-cost community clinics across the United States? Most offer health care services based on a sliding scale. At these clinics, the staff will calculate the amount that you can afford to pay based on your income.

5. Opt for a Telehealth Visit

Telehealth or telemedicine doesn’t work for every situation, but more often patients are using it as a way to lower costs and improve their access to care. One telehealth provider recently released data that suggests an average cost savings of $1,500. By avoiding the ER, patients saved at least $309.

6. Shop for Cheaper Insurance on the ACA Marketplace

According to sources, more people qualify for federal government-sponsored insurance plans than ever before. The amount you’ll pay for health coverage depends on your estimated income. In addition, you may qualify for tax advantages that can reduce your health care spending even more.

7. Reduce Cost of Prescription Drugs

By buying generic drugs instead of brand-name drugs, you can save as much as 70%. Generics have the same active ingredients as the name-brand drugs they replace.

Reduce the number of A&E visits

Although it seems counter-intuitive, virtual consultations can lower the number of visits to casualty. A trip to an emergency department is far more costly than a visit to the doctors surgery.

Reduce travel costs for doctors and patients

Perhaps the most obvious cost saving from remote patient monitoring through online consultations is reduced travel costs, as it reduces the need for patients to travel to GP surgeries and clinics. Travel to appointments and parking at hospitals can be expensive, especially for those patients that need more frequent care or who live in rural areas. Although the number of GPs offering home visits has reduced in recent years, there are still a number of cases where patients cannot visit the surgery and require a consultation from the comfort of their home.

Hospitals and clinics gain productivity

One of the most important aspects of telehealth is the ability for hospitals and clinics to automate admin and other manual processes. The aim is not for digital health to replace people’s jobs, but to replace routine tasks, so that non-clinical staff have more time for patient facing activities.

Allows greater access to specialist care

For smaller hospitals, employing specialist doctors on a full time contract can be costly, especially when the demand for their services doesn’t meet the doctors contracted hours.

Reduce hospital readmissions

Telehealth can reduce the number of people being readmitted to hospital each year.

What is a patient portal?

A quality patient portal should have a messaging center that patients and providers can use to address health questions and concerns quickly and efficiently.

Why is patient portal important?

The patient portal is one of the most important tools that a provider needs to have a successful practice. It increases patient engagement like no other tool ever has and cultivates a better patient-provider relationship.

Why do people avoid going to the doctor's office?

In the past, patients have put off and avoided going to their doctor’s office because it can become very inconvenient, taking large amounts of time out of their day or just interrupting their lives in general.

Does a patient portal cost a dime?

The Cost of a Patient Portal. The truth about the cost of a patient portal is that it does not, and should not, have to cost a provider a dime. Each component of a physician’s office technology is related and should work together to make sure physicians are offering quality care, meeting regulatory requirements and practicing medicine ...

When employees don't fully meet their out-of-pocket responsibilities, the health system is put in the

When employees don’t fully meet their out-of-pocket responsibilities, the health system is put in the awkward position of trying to collect that money. Interestingly, self-pay collection rates for hospital employees tend to be even lower than the already concerning rates that exist for other insured patients.

What is Paytient insurance?

Paytient is an employer sponsored payer that enables employees to manage out-of-pocket medical expenses through interest-free, payroll deducted payment plans. Our mission is to eliminate preventable financial harm for patients, providers, and employers while enabling people to better access and afford earlier care.

Who is the CEO of Paytient?

Paytient’s founder and CEO Brian Whorley. Paytient’s Chief Commercial Officer Darius Chehzrad. In this Business Profile, Paytient’s founder and CEO Brian Whorley and Chief Commercial Officer Darius Chehzrad discuss how streamlining the payment of out-of-pocket costs can help patients, providers and employers.

Can I use a Visa card for healthcare?

It has an open network, meaning employees can use the card for any healthcare expenses in any location throughout the United States where VISA is accepted, including primary and specialty care, dentistry , pharmaceuticals and vision care. For healthcare organizations, this platform can help reduce the cost of bad debt.