Aspira Health Patient Portal (2024)

FAQs

Do doctors read portal messages? ›

A member of the care team will “look at the chart and if they can figure it out, then they'll just respond. It is “a relatively small percentage of messages that actually find their way to the doctor,” Dr. Hopkins added. “This is something to be used for communication with their care team, not just the physician.”

A patient portal is a secure website set up by a health care system, hospital, or clinic. The tools (or features) vary, depending on the portal. Patient portals can help you access medical records, set up appointments, communicate with your health care professional, and pay medical bills.

Patient portals can inadvertently contribute to alienation between patients and healthcare providers, particularly among populations with limited access to these online tools. Individuals with lower health literacy may be resistant to using patient portals due to the potential for confusion and misunderstanding.

If your provider offers a patient portal, you will need a computer and internet connection to use it. Follow the instructions to register for an account. Once you are in your patient portal, you can click the links to perform basic tasks. You can also communicate with your provider's office in the message center.

If I go see a doctor, can that doctor see my medical records from another doctor? It depends. If the new doctor is not part of the network of you previous physician, you must send record or give the new doctor access. If the matter concerns certain classes of medication, there is a database.

A patient portal is a secure online website that gives patients convenient, 24-hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an Internet connection. Using a secure username and password, patients can view health information such as: Recent doctor visits. Discharge summaries.

Concerns for patient privacy

Patients may be worried about the security of their protected health information (PHI) stored in digital platforms, which could lead to data breaches and unauthorized access.

This finding could be a warning for hospitals to improve their patient portal security. Recent research has also shown an alarming increase in cyberattacks to patient portals³³ and patient portal security should be enhanced.

Some physicians, like Joel Katz, a Harvard Medical School associate professor of medicine and director of the internal medicine residency program at Brigham and Women's, reply when they receive a thank you note. "When I get a thank-you note, I appreciate it. And I try to respond to it," Katz said.

Patient portals provide patients access to health records, lab results, medication refills, educational materials, secure messaging, appointment scheduling, and telehealth visits, allowing patients to take a more active role in their health care decisions and management.

What is the most common barrier to the use of the patient portal? ›

The most common barriers to patient portal adoption are preference for in-person communication, not having a need for the patient portal, and feeling uncomfortable with computers, which are barriers that are modifiable and can be intervened upon.

About 3 in 5 individuals nationwide reported they were offered and accessed their online medical record or patient portal in 2022 — this represents a 50 percent increase since 2020. Figure 1: Percent of individuals nationwide who were offered and accessed their online medical record or patient portal, 2014-2022.

They have insufficient identity verification. Even when a patient hasn't enrolled in the portal, fraudsters can set up a fake account using data obtained via “phishing” emails. The sign-up system has no way of knowing if this is the real person or not. They fail to mask sensitive information.

Messaging your doctor can be a convenient way to get medical advice. You can send a note through MyChart whenever you have time – day or night – and your provider will typically reply in one to three business days.

Remember there are many reasons why a healthcare provider will contact you after a medical test. If results are concerning, they may call you or have a receptionist call to schedule an appointment. 15 A healthcare provider may also call to assure you everything is okay or discuss any needed follow-up tests.

Patient portals and HIPAA compliance can be achieved if they meet the standards set forth by the HIPAA. To be compliant, HIPAA-complaint portals must ensure that all protected health information (PHI) is secure and accessible only by authorized personnel.

Text messages discussing patient medical information should be incorporated into a patient's medical record.

In summary, although doctors may have legal permission to record conversations without patient consent in certain states, they must exercise extra caution in adhering to ethical guidelines and federal laws like HIPAA. These guidelines and laws prioritize protecting patient privacy and confidentiality.