How a Patient Portal Can Transform Your Practice

Rethink your patient experience for better practice efficiency and find out how a patient portal can improve your practice. A patient engagement platform integrated into EHR and PM systems keeps providers and staff on the same page throughout the patient’s journey. What started as COVID-19 safety measures have become essential to reduce call volume and no-shows, as well as make it easier for patients to manage their care.

Let us help you get the most out of a patient engagement platform and provide insight on: 
-What patients want 
-The eight benefits of an integrated patient engagement platform
-What it means to engage with peace of mind

Download the Full E-Book Here!

As the world becomes increasingly digital, patients now expect the same level of convenience and efficiency in their healthcare experience. With the rise of COVID-19, ambulatory practices must adapt to new technologies to ensure the safety of their patients and staff. Patient engagement tools such as online portals, virtual visits, and effective communication capabilities are essential in maintaining practice safety, connecting with patients, and attracting new ones. Just like they would expect from an online retailer like Amazon, patients want a one-stop-shop experience when it comes to their healthcare needs. On the other side, healthcare providers and staff must utilize available technology to optimize efficiency and productivity in their practices. By integrating a patient engagement platform into their electronic health record (EHR) and practice management (PM) systems, providers and office staff can stay on the same page throughout a patient's healthcare journey. This e-book will guide you on how to maximize the benefits of a patient engagement platform.

WHAT PATIENTS WANT

What initially began as safety measures due to COVID-19 has transformed into a consumer demand for online convenience in healthcare. Patients will continue to rely on online communication tools to interact with their healthcare providers. User-friendly patient portals, virtual visits, and other online capabilities are expected by patients to access their provider's services, and these capabilities are becoming increasingly necessary for practices to stay competitive. Patients want to spend less time on hold on the phone, and they want the convenience of scheduling appointments and paying bills from their smartphones or computers. Managing healthcare from home through web-enabled devices also offers an additional precautionary step to reduce the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19. Providing options for online engagement ensures patient and provider safety. Additionally, patients prefer diverse communication channels and want to choose how they receive appointment reminders and other messages, whether through text, email, or phone calls. Patients also desire the flexibility to take charge of their own schedules by being able to easily change or cancel appointments online. Lastly, patients expect 24/7 access to vital healthcare information, such as test results, medication refills, and other medical information.

GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR PATIENT ENGAGEMENT PLATFORM

It is important to note that not all patient engagement solutions are created equal. When choosing a patient engagement platform, it is crucial to consider your specific needs and challenges. Assess your pain points and ask your patients informally how they would like to engage with your practice online. Determine the "must-haves" for your practice in terms of patient interaction. Look for a solution that integrates seamlessly with your EHR and PM systems, providing secure messaging between providers and patients accessible from both smartphones and computers. Ensure that the patient engagement platform can be configured to meet your specific needs and test its ease of use. It is also important to check vendor references and ask for case studies before making a decision. Understand the ongoing support arrangement and whether the vendor requires your IT staff or charges extra for customer service. When evaluating vendors, ask important questions such as whether the portal is part of a broader patient experience platform, how users can log in, what payment options are available to patients, and whether the platform can be used with different EHR and PM systems. By following these guidelines, you can choose the patient engagement platform that best suits your practice's requirements.

INTEGRATE PATIENT ENGAGEMENT WITH YOUR HEALTH IT

In an uncertain healthcare climate with evolving regulations and patient expectations, practice efficiency is crucial. To achieve efficiency, it is essential to have an integrated patient engagement platform that seamlessly connects with your EHR and PM systems. Integration reduces the need for multiple vendor relationships and allows for a tailored experience for each patient in a cost-effective manner. Conversely, a patient engagement solution that is not integrated with EHR and PM systems increases the risk of duplicating appointments, charts, and other issues. By utilizing fully integrated patient portals, patient self-scheduling, virtual visits, secure messaging, and online payment functions, practices can avoid duplication and improve overall efficiency. Providers can easily access data within the internal workflow, reviewing previous appointment details, pharmacy records, insurance information, and other data gathered in the PM and EHR systems to ensure a productive visit with the patient. The key is to select a patient engagement platform that seamlessly integrates with most EHR and PM systems. Ultimately, the goal is to enable staff and providers to focus more on patient care and less on administrative tasks such as scheduling appointments, writing refill requests, and scanning forms.

Maximizing patient engagement and offering convenient online capabilities are essential strategies for enhancing the overall patient experience and staying competitive in the constantly evolving healthcare landscape.

Eight Benefits of an Integrated Patient Engagement Platform

1. Decrease call volume: By providing patients with various options to engage with your practice, you can significantly reduce the time your staff spends on answering phone calls.

2. Enhance patient satisfaction: When patients have easy access to manage their healthcare needs, they are more likely to be satisfied with your practice.

3. Focus on patient care: With less time spent on phone calls for appointments, payments, and inquiries, your staff can focus more on providing excellent care to your patients.

4. Reduce no-shows: Research has shown that when patients can schedule their appointments through a patient portal, they are more likely to show up, decreasing the number of no-shows.

5. Minimize communication errors: Managing appointments, refills, and lab results through a patient portal can significantly reduce miscommunications.

6. Attract new patients: Improving your scheduling process can attract new patients, especially those seeking last-minute or same-day appointments.

7. Decrease A/R days: Online payment options enable faster collection of patient payments without the need for printing and mailing bills.

8. Reduce waiting room time and enhance safety: By enabling patients to confirm their personal information, complete patient registration, provide insurance details, and pay copays and balances online before their appointments, you can reduce waiting room time and improve safety.

By embracing patient self-scheduling, offering convenient payment options, facilitating seamless communication, and leveraging the benefits of telehealth integration, you can engage patients with peace of mind and empower them to actively participate in their own healthcare.

The NextGen® Patient Experience Platform, a HITRUST Certified, PCI-DSS, ONC Certified HIT, and HIPAA-compliant solution, provides a range of capabilities that benefit both patients and practices. It includes convenient online scheduling and appointment reminders, access to virtual visits with chosen providers, online prescription refill requests and medication lists, digital communication with providers on selected topics, user-driven username and password recovery, parent and caregiver access for dependents' accounts, display of past and upcoming appointments and appointment requests, and access to health records, including lab and test results, and patient education materials.

For practices, the NextGen® Patient Experience Platform offers increased revenue and faster payments through online bill payment, improved efficiency and reduced no-shows with patient self-scheduling, time savings by empowering patients to complete paperwork before appointments, streamlined prescription refill requests through automation, secure communications for practice-defined topics, automatic invitation for patients to enroll, secure two-way messaging with attachments, and patient forms available in the patient portal for easy completion and updates.

With the NextGen Office Patient Portal serving as a gateway to your practice, these capabilities complement the NextGen Patient Experience Platform, boosting practice efficiency and empowering patients in their healthcare journey.