How Patient Portals Can Boost Patient Engagement for ENT Practices

In order for your ENT practice to achieve the highest levels of patient engagement possible, you are going to need a top-of-the-line patient portal. The right patient portal can help your patients learn, grow, and connect more effectively throughout their healthcare experience, leading to better outcomes and increased practice revenue.

How Does the Patient Portal Boost Patient Engagement? 

1) Appointment Scheduling

A simple appointment scheduling option is key to getting more patients to come in for visits. This allows patients to skip the lines and view all available appointments at your ENT practice from their computer, ultimately picking the one that works best for them. A quality patient portal will boost patient engagement by sending your patients text, email, and phone call reminders about their upcoming and annual appointments. With this tool available to them, patients are less likely to forget their appointments, and more likely to schedule new visits and follow-up visits.

2) Communication

Arguably the most valuable and revolutionary feature of a patient portal is that it gives patients the opportunity to openly communicate with their physician in-between visits. Through the form of secure messaging, the patient can reach out to their providers with questions, small and large, that help them address the different areas of their health. Secure messaging has been proven to boost patient engagement due to the fact that patients are more regularly addressing their providers rather than waiting until their next visit. Patients are able to address concerns as they think of them rather than having to wait until they see their physician again. This is the most convenient way for patients to stay involved as they can access their patient portal from anywhere they are. Not only does this boost patient engagement, but it improves patient outcomes by helping providers address red flags as they appear.

3) Online Bill Management

In order to truly boost patient engagement at your ENT practice, you need to give your patients a way to engage and pay their medical expenses. The patient portal accomplishes this by giving patients a secure space to view, understand, and ask questions about their medical bills from your ENT practice while also giving them an option to pay them with a credit card. Having a patient portal that is fully integrated with your medical billing software and is equipped with a digital payment processor will help boost patient engagement and on-time payments.

4) PHI Access

In order for patients to stay involved in their medical care and achieve optimal outcomes, they need a way to view and understand their health history, their current labs, and their treatment plan. A quality patient portal will boost patient engagement by giving individuals a simple access point to their Personal Health Information (PHI), their most recent tests/labs, and their treatment plan from their physician. The ability to review, ask questions, and comprehend this information is helping providers boost patient engagement and helping patients everywhere stay more involved in their medical care, helping them achieve better outcomes, and helping them take preventative measures toward unwanted diagnoses. 

Achieving the highest levels of patient engagement is not possible without a quality patient portal. Patients need it in order to play an effective role in their care. While most ENT providers in the United States are using some kind of patient portal at their practice, they need one that will boost patient engagement and help your ENT practice grow. In order to boost patient engagement, your portal should be easy to use, offer integrated billing options, simple scheduling options, and secure communication tools. To learn more about a patient portal that can help your ENT practice boost patient engagement, click here.