Six Patient Portal Must-Haves for Your Medical Practice
post by Luke Stout, TriMed Technologies - April 06, 2022

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If you're like most medical practices, you are probably looking for ways to improve communication with your patients. A patient portal can be a great way to do that. Take a look at these 6 patient portal must-haves for your medical practice. These are features that will help you provide better care for your patients and improve communication between you and them!

A simple, easy-to-use interface: The last thing you want is for your patients to get frustrated trying to use your portal. A simple, easy-to-use interface will make it more likely that your patients will use the portal and find it helpful.

The ability to schedule appointments: Patients should be able to use the portal to schedule appointments with their medical practice. Furthermore, patients do not wish to simply request an appointment and then be contacted. Patients want the ability to book the appointment at their convenience. This will make it more likely that they'll keep their appointments and see you on a regular basis. Gone are the days of patient reminder cards, electronic booking and reminders are the new norm, and having a patient portal that seamlessly books appointments without going back and forth can increase your patient satisfaction.

The ability to view test results: Patients should be able to log into the portal and view their test results. This way, they can be aware of any changes in their health and be sure to follow up with you if necessary, through a secure messaging portal within their account. Another important factor to this feature is the integration with your EHR. TriMed Complete allows for test results to be sent to patients and be stored within your EHR so that both your patient and practitioner can see the results with options for the practitioners to leave notes for the patient to interpret their test results with ease.

The ability to message your medical practice: Patients should be able to send messages to your medical practice through the portal. This way, they can ask questions or get clarification on anything they're unsure about. This is especially important regarding test and lab results.

A secure but flexible login: You'll want to make sure that your patient portal is secure and it is with TriMed. This means that only authorized users will be able to access the portal. But you also need flexible parameters. For example, you’ll want a single login for a parent to manage multiple children under the same login. But you’ll want a college student to be able to view their portal information in a separate login. You’ll want ways for multiple adult children to monitor their senior adult parent’s information. Or you may need ways for legal guardians to give agencies read-only access for a temporary time. TriMed’s patient portal offers all of these options.

A secure login: You'll want to make sure that your patient portal is secure. This means that only authorized users will be able to access it. TriMed has one of the most secure EHR platforms on the market with data encryption, HIPAA compliancy, and stores data using AES-256, which is generally considered the highest-level commercial standard for cryptographic encryption. TriMed’s platforms also meet the criteria for ONC measures 170.315 (d)(12) and 170.315 (d)(13) which allows practices to enable additional safeguards such as Multi-Factor Authentication and storing credentials in an encrypted manner within the database.

Regular updates: You should keep your patient portal up to date with the latest information from your medical practice. This way, your patients will always have the most accurate information available to them. Since there is no special hardware or application necessary to use TriMed Complete, updates are made on TriMed’s end, allowing for the most updated security features without having to upgrade applications or hardware. If you're looking for ways to improve communication with your patients, a patient portal is a great way to do that. These six patient portal must-haves will help you provide better care for your patients and improve communication between you and them!

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