In recent months, patient portals have become a hot topic. Medical practices are striving to encourage their patients to use portals to take more control over their own healthcare.
However, while an increasing number of medical practices offer these services to their patients, patient portals remain widely underutilized.
As the owner of a medical practice, how can you ensure that your patients can (and will) access the patient portal you set up? Here are three suggestions.
1. Strive for a high-level of user experience.
It’s incorrect to assume that people don’t access patient portals because they are inept with technology. Over half (51 percent) of the population utilizes online banking to keep up with finances, while only 36% use patient portals.
So what’s the issue?
The problem lies in design. If you ensure that your patient portal is well-designed with an emphasis on an intuitive interface, patient usage will increase.
2. Tell your users when their portal will update—and follow through.
When your patients are accustomed to doing things online, they’ll expect to have access to information quickly.
Since the world of medical care takes some time—upwards of a week to run, return and analyze test results is not unusual—tell your patients when you expect results to be uploaded to their portal and send them a message when the update occurs.
3. Promote, promote, promote.
Not only should you remind your patients about accessing the patient portal when they’re in your office, but you should also advertise their ability to access it through email marketing and visibility on your website.