The Financial Benefits of a Patient Portal

If your healthcare practice is still not using a patient portal in 2026, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on top-line revenue. 

It’s not enough to rely on insurance and primary care referrals to bring in patients. Almost half of today's patients are willing to go out-of-network to find a practice that meets the criteria they’re looking for in a healthcare provider. 

Increasingly, what they’re looking for are the benefits of a patient portal. Use of patient portals surged from 15% in 2019 to 65% in 2024, with 34% of patients accessing portals six or more times that year. 

What Is a Patient Portal? 

A patient portal is a secure online platform offered by a medical practice that allows patients to access their personal health information, learn about their diagnosis and treatment plan, and connect with their healthcare providers. 

Some of the most common ways patients use portals include: 

• Online scheduling. More than a third of patients say online scheduling availability is a deciding factor when choosing a provider. 
• Asynchronous communication. Almost three-quarters of patient portal exchanges are secure messages between patients and their care team. Patients can ask questions, request prescription refills, and report symptoms without waiting for office hours to call. 
• Access to medical records. More than half of Americans use patient portals to view test results and access their medical information.

Patient portals are key to patient engagement. This is better for patients’ long-term outcomes and makes the work of providers easier. 

Nextech’s intelligent, connected software helps you grow your practice while delivering exceptional patient care. Request a Demo.

Financial Benefits of Patient Portals 

Patient portals help medical practices reduce costs and increase profits through more efficient communication, scheduling, billing, and appointments, plus increased patient lifetime value and better first-pass claim rates. 

Efficient Communication 

Patient portals connect people with on-demand information about their diagnosis, procedure, or medication. 

They can get reliable, instant answers from a chatbot and can send secure messages for you to answer when it’s convenient. 

Patients get peace of mind when they can get reliable answers from their actual healthcare provider rather than turning to a web search. 

For your practice, this means less time spent answering routine questions by phone. When your staff isn’t tied up on low-value phone work, the practice can handle more patients without increasing headcount. 

Clinical workflows aren’t interrupted to talk to a patient on the line, allowing clinicians to better focus on the patient in front of them and to see more patients per day. 

When staff offer patients information by phone, they may have to interrupt their day to add a note to the patient’s chart. A patient portal automatically documents what information the patient accessed and when, creating an audit trail and lowering liability. 

Financial benefit of efficient communication in a patient portal: Increased patient capacity because staff are not tied up in low-level communication 

Efficient Scheduling 

For a growing number of patients, self-service scheduling is non-negotiable. 

They want the freedom to request an appointment, self-book routine checkups, and cancel or reschedule without having to interrupt their day to call during office hours. 

Implementing self-scheduling is one of the best ways you can enhance your clinical workflow. It optimizes your schedule, reduces no-shows, fills cancellation gaps, and increases conversion rate, all without taking a minute of staff time. 

A simple, AI-powered scheduling questionnaire assesses urgency and estimates how long an appointment will last, so the provider’s day runs efficiently. 

When patients self-schedule, they can log the appointment in their calendar at the same time, lowering the risk that they’ll forget. Automated reminders help them remember their appointment without a staff call. Fewer no-shows means more revenue. 

When patients cancel, an automated waitlist keeps the gaps in the schedule filled. The waitlist automatically notifies patients that an earlier appointment time is available and offers them the chance to take it. 

Self-scheduling also increases the conversion rate from interest to appointment. An interested patient can book in the moment; for example, scheduling a dermatology appointment while they’re thinking about a bothersome mole. 

If the patient has to wait until the office opens the next day to schedule, the urgency has passed. They’re likely to get distracted and never make the call. 

Financial benefits of efficient scheduling with patient portals: 

• Appointment mix optimized for provider efficiency 
• Fewer no-shows and scheduling gaps, resulting in more revenue 
• Increased conversion rate for more patient appointments

Make the best use of appointment time with a streamlined, one-page EHR that lets you focus on your patient, not your screen. Request a Demo.

Efficient Billing and Collections 

Paper billing is expensive. There’s the cost of paper, printing, and postage, just so bills can sit for weeks in a stack of mail at your patient’s home. 

Then there’s the cost of collection calls and manual payment processing. 

A patient portal cuts through all the clutter. Patients can view their bill in the portal anytime, get automated reminders when a bill is coming due, pay instantly online, or set up payment plans. 

A patient portal can also defuse billing disputes before they start. Patients can’t claim bills were lost in the mail or that they already paid. 

If a patient plans to appeal a bill to their insurance, all the documentation they need is right at hand, without them calling your office and asking your staff to gather it. 

For your practice, this means lower overhead and fewer days in accounts receivable.  

Financial benefits of efficient billing through a patient portal: 

• Lower overhead costs 
• Fewer billing disputes 
• Fewer days in accounts receivable for improved cash flow

Efficient Appointments 

In some practices, the first 10 to 20 minutes of a patient’s appointment is spent filling out paperwork. 

This is frustrating for patients and inconvenient for staff and the provider, as they try to quickly get up to speed to make the rest of the appointment valuable. 

Patient portals enable patients to fill out all necessary forms, questionnaires, and consents before their appointment. These forms are automatically attached to the patient’s chart and their answers can prepopulate forms in the EHR. 

For your practice, that means shorter appointment times and higher patient throughput. 

Financial benefit of using patient portals to prefill forms: Shorter, more valuable patient appointments, allowing you to see more patients in the same amount of time 

Nextech’s intelligent system connects clinical and administrative software tools for seamless workflows. Request a Demo.

Increased Patient Lifetime Value 

Practices dedicate a lot of resources to patient acquisition. But the long-term financial stability of your practice relies on keeping those patients coming back. 

Patient Lifetime Value is the total amount of revenue a patient brings to your practice, from their first visit through their last. 

Without prompting, patients may stop at the diagnostic stage. A patient portal helps them to understand their diagnosis and keep track of their care plan. 

Automated follow-up sequences prompt the patient to schedule their follow-up appointments, check in with their care team, and follow the steps in their treatment plan. 

Financial benefit of using patient portals to improve patient follow-through: More billable visits, plus better patient outcomes 

Better First-Pass Claim Rates 

A patient portal can even improve your practice’s relationship with payers. Patients can easily upload their insurance information at the time they make the appointment. 

Getting this up-to-date information before the appointment date allows time for pre-authorization, resulting in fewer claims denials and resubmittals. 

Financial benefit of improving first-pass claim rates with patient portals: Fewer payer denials, shortening the revenue cycle 

Connect Your Patient Portal With a Powerful Specialty Practice Platform 

When choosing a patient portal, choose one that connects seamlessly with every other tool in your practice. 

Nextech’s intelligent, specialty-specific system enables patient engagement, easy charting, and other robust tools to support outstanding patient care. 

These tools seamlessly connect with practice management functions for streamlined coding and billing, secure compliance, revenue cycle management, and everything you need to grow your practice. Request a demo to experience it for yourself.