5 Effective Ways to Encourage Patients to Use a Patient Portal

In critical healthcare practice, keeping patients in the loop of their healthcare journey can be daunting. Though challenging, technological advancements such as Patient Portals can help address this challenge by facilitating active patient engagement.

However, the patient portal offers a vast range of features and benefits, and while it can help navigate many challenges, it is not as easy as it seems. The most daunting challenge of the patient portal is convincing patients to use it.

According to a survey by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, 79% of patients were encouraged by healthcare providers to use the patient portal, and 11% of patients were not encouraged by healthcare providers. 

Another survey revealed that most of the patients have no idea how to use the patient portal. This will ultimately limit the patient’s ability to use the patient portal. 

If you’re a healthcare provider who wants to encourage patients to use patient portals, this blog post will guide you through 5 effective ways to encourage patients to use patient portals.

What is a Patient Portal?

Before walking through, as a healthcare practice or provider, you should know everything about the patient portal to efficiently communicate with patients. Patient portals are online platforms specially designed to share patient records with patients. 

But it doesn’t stop there, more than just sharing medical records with patients, as it has various ranges of capabilities to help patients on their healthcare journey conveniently at home. Using the patient portal, patients can:

• Schedule appointments with providers at home
• Pay medical bills online
• View medical records like lab results
• Review healthcare providers’ clinical notes
• Request medication refills
• Consult healthcare providers via messaging, video calls, and phone calls
• Fill out pre-visit forms online

And a lot more. The patient is required to enter their username and password to access the patient portal. Overall, the patient portal plays a crucial role in keeping patients informed, engaged, and connected with the healthcare team.

Related: Patient Portals 2024: Latest Trends, Features, and Benefits

The Importance of Patient Portal

Imagine a patient without a patient portal. If the patient is located far from the healthcare practice and wants to collect medical records, the patient needs to travel to the practice to receive them. In this way, it costs money to travel, is time-consuming, and a day. 

It’ll also limit patients being actively involved in their healthcare journey. Moreover, scheduling appointments with the providers can be daunting for patients. According to the survey, normally a patient has to wait for 50 minutes to 1:30 hours to meet the healthcare providers.

Switching to a patient portal provides all the benefits and convenience for patients and will encourage them to be involved in their healthcare journey. However, using a patient portal, providers and patients can rapidly reduce patient wait times by half with the help of scheduling appointments online.

5 Effective Ways to Encourage Patients to Use a Patient Portal

Though it provides a vast range of benefits for patients, healthcare providers must encourage patients to use patient portal platforms.

1. Educate In Person About the Patient Portal

To effectively encourage patients to use the patient portal, healthcare practices must consider in-person education for patients. Consider hiring dedicated staff and conducting training sessions about patient portals completely, from nukes and corners. 

If possible, educate the patient practically to gain knowledge about the patient portal. Also, teach the specialists how to communicate with the patients. Then the specialist can encounter the patients to spread word about the importance of the patient portal. 

The in-person approach is more effective than any other way. For more effectiveness, the specialist can show the demo of the patient portals to the patient.

2. What Patients Can Get From the Patient Portal

This is an effective way to convince patients to use the patient portal. When specialists are speaking with patients in person, consider telling them what patients can get from the patient portal. To make it more effective, mention a common challenge the patients are continuously facing and how the patient portal can simplify the process.

For instance, if the patient is struggling to travel to the healthcare practice to collect all the necessary medical records, tell that the patient can easily receive all the up-to-date medical records online via the patient portal. Pointing out pain points and providing solutions will effectively encourage patients to leverage the platform.

3. What Can Patients Do With the Patient Portal?

This is where healthcare providers need to reveal the features of the patient portal. The specialist needs to share the features of the patient portal effectively without leaving anything behind. Patients must know the full capability of the patient portal to experience its full potential.

For instance, the specialist can consider telling the patient that:

• Patients can receive up-to-date medical records online
• Schedule appointments online with the provider conveniently at home 
• CanRequest medical refills efficiently using the platform
• Patients can pay their medical bills online with the patient portal
• Can connect with a provider for health consultations via secure messaging or video calls

More features to share. More than just listing features like appointment scheduling, e-prescription, and access to medical records, consider sharing like patients can receive up-to-date medical records online via the patient portal and schedule appointments with the provider conveniently at home.

Related: Patient Portal Apps: Easily Overcoming the Burden for a Healthier Tomorrow

4. Having Brochures in Waiting Areas

Healthcare practices must consider having patient portal brochures in the patient waiting area. The brochure must include all the benefits and features for the patients. It’s a great way to passively promote the patient portal.

• A brief overview of what the portal is – an online account for patients to access health information and manage care.
• Screenshots of the portal interface so patients can know what it looks like.
• List of specific features/benefits – View health records, refill medication, message providers, schedule appointments, etc.
• Directions on How to sign up for an account
• QR code patients can scan to sign up right away from their smartphones.

Having brochures available in waiting areas, exam rooms, etc. allows you to reach out to patients with whom you may not have interacted otherwise.

5. Don’t Make Your Patient Portal More Complex

Encouraging patients to leverage the patient portal is not the real thing, so keeping patients actively using the platform is crucial. Don’t make the patient portal complex for patients. 

As it’ll limit them to use the patient portal platform efficiently. Keeping a user-friendly interface, easy navigation, and everything in one interface can make the patients use the patient portal easily. A simple patient portal can encourage patients to use the platform for longer periods.

Vozo ClientX

If you are searching for a reliable patient portal app, the Vozo ClientX has incredibly empowered patients with advanced & simplified portal features. 

This includes secure one-on-one messaging and easy appointment scheduling. It also provides easy access to lab reports and record consultations. 

Requesting and refilling e-prescriptions is way too simple now. Our comprehensive solution makes your lifestyle healthier by encouraging you to be proactively involved in your healthcare journey.

• The Vozo ClientX can easily integrate with your EHR system, ensuring improved efficiency and productivity.
• Our Support Team is available 24/7 to ensure you get things done anytime, regardless of your practice size.
• Vozo ClientX has an affordable subscription model that benefits healthcare practices at all levels.
• We also provide step-by-step training sessions to help you efficiently use the platform.
• Our platform has a simple, user-friendly interface where anyone can use our app without any tech knowledge.
• Our Patient Portal app has strong privacy and security to ensure the safeguarding of crucial information.
• Vozo ClientX can be easily customizable to meet the specific needs and requirements of your healthcare specialty.

Empower the Vozo ClientX and proactively be involved in your healthcare journey!