Under Meaningful Use Stage II, its not enough to simply offer a patient portal.
Providers need to ensure that at least five percent of their patients are using the patient portal. How can you, as a health care provider, easily and cost effectively comply to this requirement
Here are five helpful tips to promote and improve adoption of your patient portal.
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Add a page to your website that educates your patients on what a portal is and what they can accomplish once logged in. Be sure to add a prominent, graphical link to your portal that is placed high up on the that page. If possible, try to add a graphical link throughout your website and, where appropriate, contextually in your copy. For example, when you discuss prescription refills, embed a link to the portal in your reference.
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Ask your EMR vendor if they have a demo video on how to use the portal. If they do, simply embed that video on the portal page of your website. If they do not have a video, create one yourself. It’s easy and inexpensive (or free) with tools like Camtasia, Join.me or GoToMeeting to create a video.
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Set up a kiosk in your waiting room with an old computer and connect it to the web. Set your portal page to display so that patients can view information about the portal, view your video demo and register.
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Change up your appointment and registration process. When patients make an appointment with your office, direct them to your website to register and log in to your portal. From there, they can complete required forms such as patient registration and medical history forms. If you send out letters to your new patients, list your website address with instructions on how to use your portal to complete needed forms. For those EMRs that require a Patient ID before you can use the portal, add this ID to your new patient letter.
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On your phone system, change your on-hold music to a message introducing your patient portal and its benefits.
It’s time to start educating and promoting so that patients start using your portal!