9 Effective Ways to Encourage Patients to Use Patient Portals

What are Patient Portals?

Patient portals are secure online platforms that medical practices use to connect with their patients. It provides patients 24/7 access to their personal health records. Patients can use the portals with a username and password to:

• Fill out forms
• Pay bills online
• View lab results
• Review doctor’s notes
• Schedule appointments
• Receive billing statements 
• Request prescription refills
• Check benefits and coverage
• Send secure messages to the clinic

Benefits of Patient Portals for Providers

1. Save time and cost by streamlining your care services and clinical processes. 
2. Meet Meaningful Use requirements as you provide patient-specific educational resources, clinical summaries, and access to personal health information securely.
3. Patients will be more involved in managing their health. For example, a patient can use the portal to send their questions and queries if they can’t arrange a clinic visit right away. 
4. Improved treatment and medicine compliance, bettering health outcomes, due to the convenient way of sending refill requests and scheduling appointments. 
5. Patients are more loyal to you and are more likely to recommend your clinic to others. They will feel more at ease with your processes due to the convenience and transparency. 

How Do You Get More Patients to Use Portals?

Here are c

1. Make Patient Portal Enrollment part of your initial care procedures

You need to set patient portal enrollment as a standard in your practice from their first appointment. Encourage them that it will make future processes, like prescription refills and appointment scheduling more convenient. 

2. Automate patient portal enrollment by syncing it to online scheduling services. 

Your patients may prefer to schedule their appointments online for convenience. Program your online appointment booking system to automatically enroll them in your patient portal. Make sure to highlight the benefits like appointment reminders (via text or email) and online payment options.

3. Patient Portal Enrollment at Your Check-In Kiosk or App

Provide a contact on the sign-in sheet if you have automated sign-in for patients as they come for an appointment so they can easily register as they wait. Make it mandatory upon their arrival and explain to them how the portal can make it more convenient for them. 

4. Promote your Patient Portal

One of the possible reasons patients do not register for a patient portal is that they might be unaware of its existence. Fix this by using a sign-up connection with any piece of communication you deliver, whether by brochures, mail, or email. Put a connection in everyone's signature for email communications, and get the URL printed on reminder cards and letterheads.

5. Be Mobile Friendly

Patient portal engagement is a challenge, especially among low-income people, but optimizing for mobile will help level the playing field. Patient portals that are designed for smartphones will further improve patient use of the portal since over 81 percent of people in the United States now own a smartphone.

6. Instruct your Staff to Encourage Your Patient to Use the Patient Portal

From your front desk to your doctors, everyone should be able to sign patients up for your portal and should have the tools necessary to do so. Make sure the employees are aware of the importance of checking in with patients for their participation. You can also offer tablets or laptops to each department for registration. When they are in the clinic, patients are more likely to sign up. Make the best of it!

7. Offer rewards

Offering rewards is a smart way to promote not only enrollment but also the benefits of the portal. Consider rewarding the first ten people who make appointments through the platform each month with a discount, a gift card, or entering newly-registered patients to a raffle. Your rewards don't have to be lavish. They will, however, give patients the extra boost they need to connect with the portal. 

Partner with the Right Team

Let’s boost your patient volume and improve your check-in process with our Remote Patient Concierge Services. DrCatalyst can triple your patient volume by streamlining your administrative and clinical tasks by utilizing top digital marketing strategies, all while staying HIPAA compliant. Talk to our remote medical staffing specialists TODAY.

Schedule a free consultation today!