Is Your Health Center Ignoring the Power of the Patient Portal?
The missing ingredient to achieving your organizational KPIs:
4 ways your patient portal can positively impact your health center
By Patty Johnson, MBA, CMPE, Director, Facktor
Community Health Centers (CHCs) play a vital role in providing affordable, accessible healthcare services, especially in underserved communities. To improve the efficiency of operations and the quality of patient care, many CHCs have adopted health information technologies. Patient Portal platforms allow patients to access their health records, communicate with healthcare providers, and manage appointments and prescriptions online. The use of patient portals can significantly improve key performance indicators (KPIs) for CHCs, contributing to better patient outcomes and organizational success.
The initial features of a patient portal focused on secure messaging, the ability to request prescription refills, and the development of and access to an after-visit summary. The capabilities of a patient portal have evolved and contribute to playing a vital role in delivering high-quality care with greater continuity between care team providers. Advanced features in a patient portal can ultimately benefit both the patients and health centers financially and operationally. These features include access to lab results, appointment scheduling, online billing and payment, access to physician notes, educational information, and the ability to complete registration, health history and other intake forms prior to the patient’s arrival at the health center.
Deployment of your patient portal to the greatest extent may be an important missing ingredient to achieving your organizational KPI’s focused on the Quintuple Aim. Below are some established and lesser-known ways a Patient Portal can positively impact your CHC.
1. Increase Patient Engagement
One of the most important KPIs for CHCs is patient engagement. Patient portals empower individuals to take control of their health by providing easy access to information such as lab results, medication lists, and care plans. When patients are more informed about their health, they are more likely to follow treatment recommendations, attend follow-up appointments, and adhere to medication regimens. An analysis performed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology demonstrated that clinics with patient portals have experienced up to a 30% increase in patient engagement.
Impact on KPIs:
Higher Patient Satisfaction
Higher Patient Retention Rates
Improved Quality of Care Metrics
2. Reduce Phone Fatigue
Empowering patients with instant access to their information reduces the number of calls coming into the health center. Journals like The Journal of Medical Internet Research and Health Affairs have examined the reductions in administrative burden due to fewer calls for scheduling, prescriptions refills, and lab results. Clinics that have implemented patient portals reported a reduction of 22-30% in these types of inbound calls. This allows the health center care team to focus on the patients in the clinic and more complex tasks, spending less time answering repetitive inquiries. Patient portals facilitate online prescription refill requests, cutting down refill-related calls by up to 40%. Lastly, up to 65% of patients access their lab results directly through patient portals, significantly decreasing the volume of calls from patients inquiring about test results.
Impact on KPIs:
Increased Patient Throughput
Improved Patient Access
Improved Employee Satisfaction
3. Improve Days in Accounts Receivable (AR)
Healthcare finance organizations (e.g., the Healthcare Financial Management Association) as well as EHR vendors have reported improvements in AR days following the integration of patient portals that support online billing and payment. Health centers that use patient portals for online billing and payment have seen a reduction of 12-15% in the average days in AR, with many seeing AR reduced by 7-10 days. Offering patients the ability to pay bills through a portal increased payment timeliness. About 67% of patients are more likely to pay their bills promptly when they have access to an online payment system. Patients using portals can directly access their billing statements and make inquiries online, which reduces the number of phone calls related to billing disputes by up to 25%. This reduces administrative workloads and accelerates the billing process. Patient portals also facilitate easier updates to insurance information, reducing delays in claim processing and improving cash flow. Some centers reported a 10% faster claim turnaround time after enabling portal access for patients to update insurance information.
Impact on KPIs:
Lower Days in AR
Improved Cash Flow
Improved Clean Claim Rate
4. Decrease Costs and Increase Revenue
The Journal of Medical Internet Research indicated cost savings on paper and mailing because of patient portal utilization. Health centers that utilize patient portals can reduce costs associated with printing, postage, and mailing of medical records, test results, and billing statements. By switching to digital communications, many centers have reported significant savings on paper and mailing costs. Automated appointment reminders and the ability to reschedule online reduce the number of missed appointments (no-shows), which directly impacts the health center’s revenue and operational efficiency. A reduction in no-shows improves appointment utilization, meaning fewer empty slots, which translates into better revenue capture without extra staffing costs.
Impact on KPIs:
Reduced Administrative Costs
Improved Operating Margin
Reduced No-Show Rates
Alongside optimization of patient portal technology, health center staff interactions play a critical role in its success. Consistent messaging from the staff will contribute to successful portal usage by patients. Frontline staff are often the first point of contact for patients. Their ability to clearly communicate the portal’s features, benefits, and ease of use can increase patients’ confidence to utilize the system. The greater staff engagement and their comprehensive understanding of the portal benefits, the greater the likelihood of promoting the portal to patients resulting in higher adoption rates.