Almost every medical professional has a business website today but do they have the ability to provide a HIPAA-compliant account for their patients where they can interact with your practice, review their treatment plans, update account information, pay outstanding balances, schedule appointments, receive lab results, request refills or modify their appointment schedules?

This is where a Patient Portal comes in handy. It is fully integrated with a practice management system and can greatly improve patient-to-office communication because of features that improve your workflow and allow your staff to focus more on patients, build better relationships and deliver better care.

“Patients recall only about 10% of the information imparted by physicians during an office visit, and about half of all patients don’t understand their treatment plan,” states Richard Nordstrom, chief executive officer for a health care communications consulting firm in Montclair, N.J.

The objective of Patient Relationship Management is ultimately to improve outcomes through continuity of care, and improved patient communication by connecting not only to the patient, but their families and caregivers, plays a pivotal role in achieving the ultimate goal. In addition to increasing staff accountability, patient portal is also ideal for collecting important feedback regarding treatment care, staff interactions and patient experience. If done properly, it can vastly contribute to patient-centered and family-focused care, which leads to increased patient satisfaction.

Today’s patient portals must meet Stage 2 requirements of the Meaningful Use program. Here’s a checklist of some features your portal must have:

1. It should be HIPAA Secure and certified for Meaningful Use Stage 2.
2. The Portal should be tightly integrated and work as one with your clinical, medical billing and practice management software.
3. It should be cloud-based so it is accessible anytime, anywhere, from any device, by both the patient and by the medical staff.
4. Offer Patient-to-Provider HIPAA Secure Messaging.
5. Offer online scheduling so that patients can set appointments, cancel, or move an appointment to avoid missing, costly appointments.
6. The ability for patients to print any necessary forms before they come in – or even better, to register electronically right on the website prior to the appointment.
7. Patients should be able to enter their medical history, allergies, medications, reason for the visit, and update their insurance info.
8. Patients should be able to review labs (as deemed by the provider), request refills, and referrals.
9. Process credit card payments so that patients can pay online.

A well-structured Patient Portal like the one CureMD offers, is exceedingly user friendly and requires very little computer knowhow to operate. It gives practice staff complete control of the website and they are easily able to update it on their own.

Allowing patients easy access to their data, along with secure and HIPAA compliant doctor-patient communication, will improve your staff’s productivity by reducing time consuming tasks and will improve patient satisfaction. It will give you an opportunity to provide more and better personalized care and medical treatment to your patients.

Improving communication with your patients is likely to reduce your risk of being sued for malpractice. A more patient-centric approach not only leads to better outcomes and patient satisfaction, but it also gives patients a sense of empowerment as they feel that they are actively engaged in their own healthcare treatment.