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Patient Portal Software
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CarePaths EHR
CarePaths EHR
HIPAA-Compliant & ONC-Certified Cloud-Based Electronic Health Records & Practice Management. Solo-practitioners or groups of all sizes can grow and manage their practice for an affordable price. Get telehealth, claims, and eligib...Read more
Office Practicum
Office Practicum
Office Practicum by Connexin Software was built by physicians to provide an integrated electronic health record (EHR) and practice management solution. The system offers appointment scheduling, clinical documentation management, c...Read more
Elation Health
Elation Health
Elation Health is a cloud-based clinically focused electronic health record solution for physicians looking for an ONC-ATCB certified EMR along with patient scheduling, a patient portal, e-prescribing and e-faxing. The solution ca...Read more
Cerner PowerChart Ambulatory EHR
Cerner PowerChart Ambulatory EHR
Cerner's PowerChart Ambulatory EHR is a hybrid EHR solution that caters to clinicians in hospitals and ambulatory facilities. PowerChart is designed to help with multi-entity electronic medical record creation. This solution can b...Read more
VEPRO Health Portal
VEPRO Health Portal
VEPRO Health Portal is a DICOM compliant cloud-based medical information publishing solution that is suitable for practices of all sizes. It enables the sharing and publication of health care reports both in-house and across organ...Read more
Bridge Patient Portal
Bridge Patient Portal
Bridge is an enterprise patient portal and patient engagement solution for health care organizations and their patients. It is suitable for organizations seeking to replace their existing EHR system's patient portal, connect dispa...Read more
TouchWorks EHR
TouchWorks EHR
Allscripts TouchWorks® EHR is a leading EHR platform for large, multi-specialty practices, management services organization (MSO) platforms, and academic and independent delivery networks (IDNs). With its open architecture and con...Read more
Software pricing tips
Read our Patient Portal Software Buyers GuideSubscription models
- Per employee/per month: This model allows you to pay a monthly fee for each of your employees.
- Per user/per month: Users pay a monthly fee for users—normally administrative users—rather than all employees.
Perpetual license
- This involves paying an upfront sum for the license to own the software and use it indefinitely.
- This is the more traditional model and is most common with on-premise applications and with larger businesses.
Rated best value for money
Ambra Health
Ambra Health
Ambra Health is a cloud-based medical imaging platform for medical practices of all sizes including hospitals, medical groups, radiology practices and contract research organizations. It offers a cloud-based PACS and VNA enabling ...Read more
Benchmark Systems
Benchmark Systems
Benchmark Systems’ Solutions Suite serves independent care professionals and their patients across various specialties. From the front office to the back office, Benchmark Systems Solutions Suite of PM, EHR and RCM supports your s...Read more
My Clients Plus
My Clients Plus
My Clients Plus is a cloud-based medical platform. It is used by mental and behavioral health providers for medical practice management. My Clients Plus’ key features comprise therapy billing, client portal, to-do list, thera...Read more
SimplePractice
SimplePractice
SimplePractice is a cloud-based practice management system built to make the business side of private practice easier. Our easy-to-use and HIPAA-compliant software helps health and wellness professionals automated their day-to-day...Read more
Healthy Outcomes
Healthy Outcomes
InteliChart delivers the Healthy Outcomes patient-engagement platform with smart, user-friendly solutions that work in unison to engage patients, attain superior outcomes proactively, and streamline practice workflows. The platfor...Read more
Popular Patient Portal Software Comparisons
Buyers Guide
Last Updated: March 11, 2022What is patient portal software?
Patient portal software is a versatile solution that provides users with a secure access to medical records and services. It boosts patient engagement by facilitating tasks such as scheduling appointments, requesting prescription refills, and making online bill payments.
Here's what we'll cover:
- Why is patient portal software important?
- Common functionality of patient portal software
- Deployment strategies and pricing
- Market trends to understand
Why is patient portal software important?
Your practice should consider buying patient portal software for a number of reasons—but perhaps the most compelling one involves the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009. HITECH offers federal stimulus money to practices that invest in health IT to achieve various “meaningful use” requirements.
These requirements have been introduced in stages; the final one, stage three, has a measure calling for the “coordination of care through patient engagement.” This means providers must use technology to give patients access to health information for viewing, downloading and/or transmitting to a third party. As we’ll explain later in this guide, patient portal software can handle all these tasks, and more.
Another reason to implement patient portal software: It’s in demand among providers, so patients will come to expect it at your practice. In fact, a recent survey presented by the Digital Health Coalition found that 52 percent of prescribers (M.D.s, N.P.s, and P.A.s) offer a patient portal, while another 17 percent plan to offer one in the next 12 months.
As other studies show, patients are enthusiastic about this technology, too. Research published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons finds that a patient portal is a preferred follow-up channel for surgery patients: In fact, 76 percent say online-only follow-up care would be sufficient, rather than in-person visits.
A different study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research concludes that patients with portal access to notes from their primary care doctor are more likely to stick to their prescribed medication regime. Clearly, patient portals should be a top priority in any health IT investment plan.
Common functionality of patient portal software
| Medical records access | The ability for patients to access personal medical records is key. These records include lab results, diagnoses, medications, allergies, clinical summaries and more. To encourage patients to use the software, some practices are instituting online-only lab results delivery. |
| Digital paperwork | Instead of filling out new patient registration forms at the office, users can fill out that paperwork online. Since the data is already digitized, office staff save time scanning documents. In addition to intake forms, portals can provide satisfaction surveys and general health assessments for patients to complete before or after a visit. |
| Appointment setting | Typically, provider schedules are shown on a calendar in the portal, and patients can select the best time slot. Depending on your system, you can enable either appointment requests or live appointment scheduling. With the former, patients request a particular slot, an office staff member confirms the appointment and the patient is notified afterward. A system with live appointment scheduling automatically updates your practice management schedule as patients pick time slots, requiring no further staff involvement. |
| Prescription refills | Automate prescription renewal requests by letting patients ask for refills through the portal. Most systems have a dedicated module where patients can enter their information (e.g., medication, pharmacy of choice) and then submit the prescription request. The provider’s staff is notified, and can verify, approve and/or respond to the request through the portal. |
| Online bill pay | Electronic billing statements take the collections process online. Patients can make secure payments through the patient portal using a credit card number. The system will automatically process those payments once they’re submitted. |
| Secure messaging | Exchange messages with patients through the portal instead of over the phone. Most systems provide a secure electronic messaging platform that emails patients when their care team sends a new message. Providers can respond to messages that patients send through the portal, too. |
Deployment strategies and pricing
Patient portal vendors often package the software as part of an integrated EHR suite that includes other applications; however, the patient portal functionality can also be purchased as a stand-alone or “best-of-breed” program. If you go with a stand-alone system, it’s important for you to make sure it can integrate with the EHR you’re already using.
Some stand-alone patient portal vendors already have partnerships with EHR vendors, and offer complementary integration between the two—but that’s not always the case. Experts warn integrating a third-party patient portal with your EHR may cost you more time and money than you budgeted. If you plan to do this, be sure to get an interface cost estimate from any vendors you evaluate.
With an EHR suite, users typically don’t pay extra for patient portal functionality. However, stand-alone systems have different pricing models in place, depending on whether a practice wants to pay per patient or per provider.
For example, buyers might pay a low monthly fee depending on how many patients actually use the portal during a set time period. In this model, the fee would be paid for each patient user.
Alternatively, a higher monthly pricing fee could be applied if the practice would rather pay based on the number of registered providers managing the patient portal. A “provider” is anyone providing care to patients (not counting administrative staff). Here, the fee would be paid for each provider user.
The two examples above are for a cloud-based deployment model, in which the system is hosted on external servers and accessed remotely through the Web. On-premise deployments, in which the software is hosted on the provider's own server, are also available from some patient portal vendors, coming with a one-time perpetual license fee that is significantly higher than cloud-based fees.
Market trends to understand
The following trends are common in the patient portal software market:
- Customizations: While fees may apply for customizing your portal, you may find this is worth the extra expense, depending on your practice’s needs. Some examples of customizations include changes to registration form templates and custom home page designs.
- HIPAA compliance: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) includes a series of mandates to protect the privacy and security of electronic patient records. Most patient portal vendors will advertise that their products are HIPAA-compliant and have security standards, such as data encryption technology, for their systems.