The Financial Benefits of a Patient Portal

Healthcare has seen several drastic changes over the past few years. A need for more contactless office procedures. A sharp rise in the use of telemedicine. A surge in digital payments. A crackdown on Information Blocking violations. One change that has not received nearly as much attention is increased financial responsibility for patients. And this economic trend highlights the benefits of patient portals for specialty healthcare practices. 

A patient portal is an online platform where patients schedule appointments, pay bills, and more. When portals are easy to use, the financial benefits are plentiful for your practice and patients. There are many ways to optimize your patient portal while reducing overhead costs and minimizing unnecessary work for your staff. 

What Is a Patient Portal?

Patient portals are online interfaces where patients can access electronic health records, prescription refills, and more information on their healthcare — all available 24 hours a day, right from their own home. Often, they can schedule appointments or send messages to healthcare staff via these portals too. 

Some portals offer additional capabilities, such as information on healthcare conditions, video rooms for telehealth appointments, and live chat features.

For patients, this portal makes it easier for them to be engaged with their treatment and spend less time on personal admin work, like booking appointments and paying copays. Portals also ensure your practice is Cures Act-compliant and isn’t causing information blocking violations. When information is shared transparently with patients, you also build rapport and trust. In total, the benefits of a patient portal contribute to a better overall patient experience.

How Can Patients Use a Patient Portal?

Patients often access the portal from a phone or computer. Typically, they receive a link from the practice to set up an account and login information. Once in the portal, patients can navigate around and perform tasks, such as contacting your office or joining a telehealth appointment. 

To ensure patients can set up their accounts easily (and with fewer questions for your team), your practice should choose an intuitive patient portal with options to automate communication. If your patient portal, EHR, and PM system are all seamlessly integrated and set up to facilitate automations, there’s a lot that can be done to make things easier for your staff and more convenient for your patients. For example, you can send a patient a follow-up email after an intake appointment with the link to sign up and instructions on how to use the portal — all without adding extra tasks onto your staff’s plate. 

Before setting up that automation, reflect on how patients access and move through the patient portal. Write up thorough instructions on how to use it. To ensure those instructions make sense to someone outside your practice, have a family member or friend navigate through the portal with the instructions.

The Benefits of Patient Portals 

The benefits of a strong patient portal are abundant. However, diving into the case studies, statistics, and logic that make patient portals so effective can bring an even deeper understanding of the value they can add to your practice and how they can delight your patients. 

1. Empower patients
2. Build trust
3. Increase revenue
4. Reduce costs
5. Improve patient engagement
6. Meet patient expectations

Here are the six main benefits of patient portals. 

1. Empower patients: Patient portals provide patients with easier ways to become more engaged in their own care; e.g., scheduling appointments, accessing their healthcare data, and asking questions about treatments.

2. Build trust: Patient trust is often built on a transparent, accessible relationship with healthcare providers, according to a 2022 study from the Journal of Medical Internet Research. Since a portal provides patients with the ability to chat with healthcare staff and access information on different conditions, treatments, and prescriptions, it acts as a virtual resource bank, promoting trust and transparency. 

3. Increase revenue: Healthcare Finance News cited a study that indicates increasing portal adoption can improve patient pay yields by up to 8%.

Healthcare Finance also reported that Chris Lah, senior director of revenue cycle for Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, noted how after implementing a consumer-friendly patient portal, his organization increased collections from 10% to 15% and saved $70,000 a year by replacing phone communications with digital/self-service options.

4. Reduce costs: Patient portal adoption can help reduce your overhead costs as well as your staff's workload, especially when portals offer an online payment option. Modern Plastic Surgery and MedSpa, for example, saw significant time and money savings because their patient portal took work off their staff’s plate. 

5. Improve patient engagement: When Florida-based Coastal Eye Intitute switched EHR providers, they were able to bring patient information up during appointments and send it to patients afterward via their EHR vendor’s patient portal. This increased engagement and rapport in their office.

6. Meet patient expectations: A 2023 study by the Journal of Medical Internet Research suggests most patients expect a patient portal. By meeting this expectation, you become a top choice for patients who are shopping around for their healthcare needs now more than ever before.  

Common Challenges with Patient Portals

While patient portals offer great benefits, they can involve some challenges. The biggest obstacle is that many portals are hard to use, especially for less tech-savvy patients. It also can be difficult to find a system that satisfies all the needs of your patients and your team. 

Patient portals can also be difficult to integrate with EHR and PM software. When integrated poorly, your practice may experience double bookings, failed reminders about appointments, and other inefficiencies that can diminish the patient experience.

The wrong patient portal also may not be in compliance with the Cures Act and HIPAA. Personal healthcare information needs to be accessible to your patients, but not to hackers.

Fortunately, if you choose an intuitive EHR that’s cloud-based and encrypted, you can eliminate data security and usability concerns. Some, such as Nextech’s patient portal, are also designed to easily integrate with EHR and PM software. 

To ensure these challenges don’t impact your office, you can also consider ways to increase patient portal adoption among patients. Easy, effective ideas include marketing the patient portal in emails and texts and creating clear instructions to hand out during your patient check-in process.

Future Patient Portal Trends

Patient portals are here to stay. And the experience of using them is only getting better, thanks to healthcare trends that companies are implementing into different patient portal technology. 

AI in Patient Portals

When implemented into patient portals responsibly, AI will be a boon to patients. Instead of googling medical conditions or symptoms, AI could potentially populate relevant, personalized information into their patient portal. 

Easier-to-Use Interfaces

Ease of use is a top concern for any company who creates high-quality patient portals. At Nextech, for example, we have a robust product team who regularly researches portal usability and implements updates and changes to ensure optimal performance and a smooth user experience. 

Telemedicine

A 2022 study from the Journal of General Internal Medicine suggests most patients are interested in synchronous telemedicine appointments. However, those appointments need a virtual meeting place — and Zoom isn’t exactly HIPAA-compliant. Instead, many patient portals are now equipped (or becoming equipped) with telemedicine features, including live video calls, that comply with healthcare regulations. 

More Payment Options

Most patients today want a fast, easy experience for digital payment. Some want to pay online in advance or after an appointment, while others want to utilize their digital wallet during the office visit. Other patients prefer a more traditional payment method, such as writing a check. A good patient portal will be able to handle multiple patient options and populate financial information into each patient’s account. 

Chatbots

It’s great when patients can readily communicate with your team, but every practice needs to set its own limits to protect its staff from overwork and to let them prioritize other responsibilities — while still ensuring a great experience for all patients. To help balance your staff's priorities and your patients’ need for guidance, many patient portals are adding chatbots where patients can get fast, accurate answers to common questions without taking staff members away from other responsibilities. 

Faster Booking and More Capabilities 

Along with the features already mentioned, many patient portal creators are looking at ways patients can book appointments faster and how to provide more capabilities built into such a convenient resource for patients. When considering options for your patient portal, look for software equipped with features to satisfy what the modern patient expects today and tomorrow. AI and other innovations are driving healthcare technology forward at a fast pace, creating a bright outlook for the future with room to enhance portals and better serve your patients. 

Get a demo to learn how Nextech's integrated patient portal can help your practice reduce costs and increase efficiency.