★ About 20 percent of individuals indicated the reason they did not access their patient portal was because they were uncomfortable with computers. ★ About one-quarter cited difficulties logging in as a reason for not accessing their portal.
Full Answer
Why do patients not use patient portals?
Disadvantages of patient portals result in these lower rates of use. 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.
What is the most common barrier to the use of the patient portal?
The most common barriers to patient portal adoption are preference for in-person communication, not having a need for the patient portal, and feeling uncomfortable with computers, which are barriers that are modifiable and can be intervened upon.
What information is excluded from a patient portal?
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 the purpose of a patient portal?
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.
How many patients use patient portals?
Nearly 40 percent of individuals nationwide accessed a patient portal in 2020 – this represents a 13 percentage point increase since 2014.
How 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 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.
Which of the following would not be included on a patient information form?
Which information item is not included on the patient information form that new patients are required to complete? (Response Feedback: Patient information forms usually do not contain medical histories; these are most often completed on separate forms.)
Can patient portals be hacked?
Unfortunately, what makes your patient portal valuable for patients is exactly what makes it attractive to cybercriminals. It's a one-stop shop for entire health records, and identity thieves can make a fast buck from stealing this data and selling it on.
Who uses patient portals?
Among the 60% percent of patients offered portal access, 95% used it. When patients weren't offered portal access, only 41% used it. Women are more likely to use portals than men. Of those who had used a portal in the past year, 59% were women while 41% were men.
Who controls the patient portal?
Electronic patient portals comprise provider-tethered applications that allow patients to electronically access health information that is documented and managed by a health care institution [15]. Patient portals are owned and administered by health care institutions (such as hospitals).
Are patient portals beneficial?
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 does Hipaa have to say about patient portals?
Online patient portals allow patients to view their medical records, schedule appointments, and even request refills of prescriptions, anywhere the patient has access to the Internet. Patient portals contain information that constitutes electronic protected health information (ePHI) under the HIPAA Security Rule.
What is the information blocking rule?
Information blocking is a practice by an "actor" that is likely to interfere with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information (EHI), except as required by law or specified in an information blocking exception.
What is the Cures Act Final Rule?
As 33 Charts put it, the Final Rule of the 21st Century Cures Act “was created to prevent the blocking of electronic health information between health systems, apps and devices. That is, health organizations can't interfere with the access, exchange or use of electronic health information.”
What is the 21st Century Cures Act summary?
The bipartisan legislation seeks to increase choice and access for patients and providers. It contains provisions to streamline development and delivery for drugs and medical devices, accelerate research into serious illnesses, address the opioid crisis, and improve mental health services.
Why are patient portals important?
Patient portals that provide secure online access to medical record information and provider communication can improve health care. Yet new technologies can exacerbate existing disparities. We analyzed information about 2,325 insured respondents to the nationally representative 2017 Health Information National Trends Survey to examine characteristics of portal nonusers and reasons for nonuse. 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. Similar disparities existed in who reported being offered access to a portal, with nonwhites also less likely to report being offered access. Reasons for nonuse included the desire to speak directly to providers and privacy concerns, both of which require recognition of the important role of provider communication and patient-provider relationships.
What is the difference between healthcare and banking?
The difference between healthcare and banking is that in banking, you are actually the customer. In healthcare, the customer is the payer , which is not usually the same thing as the patient . If healthcare ever shifts to becoming more consumer-driven, we might see things change.
What happens if your email address matches your existing account?
If the address matches an existing account you will receive an email with instructions to retrieve your username
How do patient portals work?
Patient portals enabled individuals to electronically communicate with their providers, view their clinical notes, and electronically share their health information with a health care provider. In 2020, about 6 in 10 patient portal users reported exchanging secure messages with a health care provider through their portal. Half of portal users reported viewing clinical notes written by a health care provider. The share of individuals who electronically shared their health information with a healthcare provider increased by seven percentage points (from 10 percent to 17 percent) from 2017. However, rates of individuals electronically transmitting their data to an app or service remains low (5 percent).
How many people will access the Patient Portal in 2020?
About six in 10 individuals nationwide were offered access to their patient portal and nearly 40 percent accessed their record at least once in 2020.
What is the figure 7 of the Patient Portal?
Figure 7: Rate of individuals accessing and using their patient portal by whether their health care provider encouraged them, 2020.
Will the patient portal change in 2020?
Individuals’ rates of being offered and subsequently accessing their patient portal increased significantly between 2018 and 2019, but did not change in 2020. About 6 in 10 individuals nationwide were offered access to their patient portal by a health care provider or insurer, and nearly 4 in 10 individuals (38 percent) reported that they accessed their portal at least once in 2020.
What are the benefits of patient portals?
Similarly, healthcare providers can achieve at least three big benefits from patients’ portal-usage: greater efficiencies, cost-savings and improved health outcomes — again, only if patients use their portals. But with only 20% of patients regularly relying on portals, many benefits have been unattainable. Why are most portals realizing so little of their promise?
Why are portals so complicated?
A big issue for many users is that portals are simply too complicated for at least two opposite kinds of users: those who have low computer literacy, and those who are so computer savvy that they expect the simplicity of an Uber or Instagram app to get a test result or appointment with a click or two.
What is needed to manage a portal?
Multi-disciplinary internal support and interaction across a variety of departments especially clinical functions is essential. Communication experts with content, usability and marketing experience, working with clinicians and office staff who understand healthcare and revenue workflows, are needed to deploy portals that work well both for patients and providers. Despite the industry’s continuing lack of systems interoperability, dramatic portal improvements and greater benefits are possible now.
What is portal communication?
By definition, a new communications model that gives patients the front row privilege of taking greater charge of their own healthcare may seem to physicians and hospitals as a move into a back row. A new communications model to many patients may seem complicated and unnecessary, especially when they have no obligation to use it.
How many benefits do portals provide?
Similarly, healthcare providers can achieve at least three big benefits from patients’ portal-usage: greater efficiencies, cost-savings and improved health outcomes — again, only if patients use their portals. But with only 20% of patients regularly relying on portals, many benefits have been unattainable.
What is Phoenix Health Systems?
Phoenix Health Systems provides world-class hospital IT outsourcing services, including security and other IT consulting — and vendor-independent 24 X 7 X 365 onshore Service Desk outsourcing. Please contact us for more information.
Is a patient portal a MIPS requirement?
The centerpiece of Meaningful Use / MIPS requirements was the EHR. Implementing a patient portal was indeed a necessary component, but just one. If the chosen EHR included a patient portal, which most did, it was a no-brainer for providers to implement its basic components, often with a poorly defined plan for adding modules when MU deadlines were no longer looming. Since then, other priorities often have taken precedence, but whatever the reasons, many portals in use today are not meeting users’ needs.
Why are patient portals important?
A major pro of patient portals is that they improve patient engagement. Engaged patients are more likely to stay loyal to a practice as compared to other organizations that don’t make much of an effort to connect.
What are the con's of patient portals?
One con to keep in mind with patient portals is that some patients may not have much experience with computers, preventing them from getting the most out of it.
What is an EHR in medical practice?
An EHR is a database of all the records for your patients. It’s much more efficient than an antiquated, paper-based method for organizing charts in your practice.
What happens when you enable outside access to your EHR?
For example, when you enable outside access to your EHR information via a portal, data security concerns will naturally come up. The system must use strong passwords and should include the latest encryption and other protections. Otherwise, patient data could be compromised, leading to fraud and identity theft.
Why do hospitals waste less time?
Your staff will waste less time because patients can leave them electronic messages via the portal, instead of having to stop what they are doing to respond to a call.
How does porta l help patients?
A patient porta l reduces the total amount of time spent on the phone and can cut down on unnecessary visits. What’s more, it has been proven to reduce the number of no-shows.
Can a portal be used to do things the old fashioned way?
Otherwise, patient data could be compromised, leading to fraud and identity theft. A portal can be tough for some patients to comprehend, especially if they have been used to doing things the old-fashioned way. However, you can educate and acclimate patients to the portal when you explain the benefits to them.
What happens if a patient does not have a nominated pharmacy?
If a patient does not currently have a nominated pharmacy then they will be prompted with the ‘Nominate a pharmacy’ overlay screen when they request repeat medication through the new service. Selecting Not nowwill allow patients to continue to request medication without making a nomination.
Can a practice disable online access?
Some practices may have chosen to disable online access while some changes are made to Patient Access for practices who dispense.
Why don't patients use the patient portal?
Patients who didn’t use the portal said they had security concerns, prefer red to communicate with their providers in person, or did not believe they had a use for the patient portal. All of this suggests that access to technology and other key infrastructure are not barriers to portal use; patient education about technology is.
What percentage of healthcare organizations offer patient portal access?
These findings likely point to a disparity between patient portal access and patient digital health literacy. Ninety percent of healthcare organizations offer patient portal access, meaning 90 percent of organizations give patients some mechanism by which they can view their own health information and lab results.
Why do patients have limited knowledge of their own health information?
Patients’ limited knowledge about their own health information is likely due to their inability to access their own health data. Forty percent of respondents said they did not have or did not know if they had access to their own lab results. Twenty percent said they were unable to provide lab results to referring clinicians who asked.
Do patients have enough information about the patient portal?
This latest survey data shows that patients do not have enough information about the patient portal or other tools on which they can view their medical information.
Do patients keep their medical records in filing cabinets?
Instead, patients are opting for less digital and more outdated modes of record keeping. One-third of respondents said they keep their medical records in a filing cabinet in their homes. This finding remains true when controlling for younger patients ages 20 to 37 who most medical experts say are most poised for health IT and patient portal adoption.
Why are patient portals important?
Patient portals in pediatrics raise several privacy issues, especially as patients age into adolescence and young adulthood. Patient portals are an important regulatory requirement, with industry professionals touting their ability to better engage the patient and help all participating parties manage patient health.
Why is it necessary to store patient information in a pediatric patient portal?
According to David West, MD, medical director of Nemours Health Informatics, this process is necessary because the health data stored in a pediatric patient portal doesn’t actually belong to the custodian of the portal.
Why is proxy access important for adoption?
Proxy access is at the core of portal adoption because it legally allows guardians to access and manage a child’s patient portal. Gaining proxy access, something a guardian can usually do in the doctor’s office or through extensive online verification, is critical for pediatric patient portals until the child begins managing it on her own.
Why is it important to allow privacy to a child?
According to the American Academy for Family Physicians, allowing for patient privacy once children reach adolescence is critical for ensuring patients feel comfortable utilizing healthcare services. If an adolescent feels as though their privacy may be breached, even with their parents, they may not access necessary and potentially life-saving services.
How can providers encourage more regular portal use?
According to West, providers can encourage more regular portal use by emphasizing the tool as a communication method. Providers who consistently respond to messages and requests in a reasonable time frame are better able to keep patients coming back to the portal.
What age do you have to be to get a patient portal?
Healthcare organizations typically make this shift when patients reach the each of consent. While laws surrounding the age vary state by state, age 12 or 13 is the usual threshold. When patients reach the age of consent, they gain full control of the patient portal, while their legal guardians are transferred to a limited view of the portal.
What is Nemours told to patients?
At Nemours, providers are likewise told to encourage patients to communicate with their parents about their health and grant them full access to their portals.
Why do we use email addresses?
This is because we use the email address as a unique identifier to ensure the account security and confidentiality. Users who shared an email address on the old platform and migrated their accounts across to our new platform are permitted to continue to share an email until a password reset is required.
Could it be a problem with my web browser?
A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for accessing information on the World Wide Web.
Study Data and Methods
Study Results
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…
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…
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 impor...
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.
Notes
- 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 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 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 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 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 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....
