How to Build an Effective Patient Portal

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How to Build an Effective Patient Portal
Dr. Chris Mernitz, Womens Health
Partnership David Ledwith, Medfusion
September 1, 2009
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Agenda

• Navigating the challenges of healthcare
• Introducing patient portals
• Now is the time to invest
• How to succeed? Marketing.
• Real Results Womens Health Partnership
• Summary
• Questions

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Healthcare Today is Challenging

• Practices are facing extreme pressure
• Declining reimbursements
• Skyrocketing operating costs
• Escalating administrative costs
• Increasing staffing requirements
• Industry trends adding opportunities and
  challenges
• Red Flags, PCI
• PCMH, ARRA
• Patient access and communication are key
  components to both PCMH and ARRAs meaningful
  use
• What are your most pressing challenges?
• Your most important goals?

Source 2008 MGMA Survey
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As is Running a Business

• Revenue challenges
• Slow patient A/R
• Excessive non-reimbursed phone calls
• Too many no-shows
• Inefficiency causes fewer patients/day
• Patient sat challenges
• Escalating patient complaints
• Loss of patient contact due to on hold/hang-ups
• Loss of patient referral

• Cost challenges
• Extensive paper and postage costs (patient
  education, forms, results, bills, etc)
• High staff-to-patient ratio
• Too much bad debt write-off
• Efficiency challenges
• Long waiting room times, on hold time
• Incomplete patient paperwork
• Too much staff time spent on paperwork

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And Patients Bring Additional Pressures

• What you hear
• I am sick of being on hold
• When can I get my lab results?
• Why do I have to fill out this paperwork
  again?
• How come it took someone so long to call me
  back?
• I had to wait in the waiting room forever before
  seeing the doctor

• What they want
• Convenience
• Access
• Simplicity
• Communication
• Responsiveness
• The demand is real
• 75 of patients want the ability to interact with
  their physician online (appointments,
  prescriptions, test results)
• March 2008 Physicians News Digest

• So, how can your practice respond?

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Agenda

• Navigating the challenges of healthcare
• Introducing patient portals
• Now is the time to invest
• How to succeed? Marketing.
• Real Results Womens Health Partnership
• Summary
• Questions

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Respond With A Patient Portal

• What is it?
• Online interaction between patient and practice
• A secure web-based self-service portal
• Part of your practice website accessed by both
  patients and practice staff
• How does it work?
• Patients access the secure portal via your
  website to communicate with the practice
• Practices respond to requests and initiate
  communication via that same portal

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Creating a Connected Healthcare Community

• Enables communication
• Patient to provider
• Provider to provider
• Practice to community

• Simple and secure
• HIPAA-compliant
• Delivered software-as-a-service

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Patient Portal Communications Include
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And Deliver Value Like

• Generate revenue
• Increase clinical efficiency and see more
  patients
• Improve appointment compliance by 40 reduce no
  shows
• Improve patient payment collections up to 35
  (online bill payment)
• Offer virtual care to replace typically
  non-reimbursed phone calls
• Reduce costs
• Reduce hard costs up to 75 for print, mail,
  collections costs
• Reduce labor costs through more efficient data
  collection/communication
• Shift some time-consuming responsibilities to the
  patient
• Strengthen patient communication and drive higher
  satisfaction
• Provide easy access to convenient, secure method
  of interaction
• Enable patients to better manage their healthcare
  
• Create a competitive advantage to attract new
  patients

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Agenda

• Navigating the challenges of healthcare
• Introducing patient portals
• Now is the time to invest
• How to succeed? Marketing.
• Real Results Womens Health Partnership
• Summary
• Questions

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And, Its Never Been a Better Time To Invest

• Why? ARRA and Patient-Centered Medical Home
• Federal and state governments and payers
  committing to incentive monies for healthcare IT
  adoption
• HIT seen as the most powerful instrument to
  reshape the industry
• CMS seriously considering online visits
  equivalent to in-person visits
• How do patient portals fit in?
• Provide more value for lower cost than other
  technologies
• Help patients manage their own care a growing
  demand in this consumer-driven healthcare model
• A fully-functional portal can help practices
  achieve recognition in all nine standards of PCMH
• Can exist with or without an EMR
• Are a critical component to meaningful use
  patient communication and participation

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ARRA and Meaningful Use

• Zeroing in on the final definition of meaningful
  use of an Electronic Health Records solution
• Must meet meaningful use to earn ARRA financial
  incentives
• Accelerating timelines for the following
• Provide all patients with timely electronic
  access to their health information by 2011
• Provide patients with an electronic copy of their
  discharge records and instructions by 2011
• Give all patients access to personal health
  records by 2013
• Only patient portal technology can deliver on all
  three of these requirements

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Patient-Centered Medical Home

• Model emphasizes ongoing partnership between a
  primary care physician and patient with
  conveniences like
• Email communication
• Same day appointments
• Secure online patient facing tools with patient
  education and access to health information
• Preventative appointment reminders
• Proactive chronic condition reminders
• Fully-functional patient portal technology with a
  Personal Health Record addresses all 9 standards
  of the PCMH to achieve the highest level of PCMH
  recognition
• Access and Communication
• Patient Tracking and Registry
• Care Management
• Patient Self-Managed Support
• Electronic Prescribing
• Test Tracking
• Referral Tracking
• Performance Reporting and Improvement
• Advanced Electronic Communications

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Now You Are Ready For a Patient Portal

• Heres what to look for
• Software-as-a-service
• HIPAA Compliant
• Addresses all 9 standards of Patient-Centered
  Medical Home
• Robust and user-friendly personal health record
• Seamless integration with online bill payment
  solution and practice merchant account
• One-time patient sign up
• Vendor neutrality
• Maintain practice branding with seamless
  integration to practice website
• Proven value
• Utilization, its not any good if patients arent
  using it
• Marketing assistance

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Agenda

• Navigating the challenges of healthcare
• Introducing patient portals
• Now is the time to invest
• How to succeed? Marketing.
• Real Results Womens Health Partnership
• Summary
• Questions

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How to Succeed? Marketing.

• The key to a successful patient portal is a
  well-executed marketing plan.
• Value directly tied to patient utilization
• Market to your patients and staff
• As patient utilization is increased, value from
  cost savings, revenue and efficiencies are
  increased
• Marketing web presence attracts new patients
• Demonstrate unique value and services
• Develop a brand identity
• Create a competitive advantage

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Marketing Your Patient Portal

• Print your web address
• Appointment cards, letterhead, business cards,
  all patient handouts, and all traditional
  advertising
• Mention your website voicemail, after-hours
  voicemail, on-hold message
• Tell patients what they can find on your website
• Advertise web address on billing statements
• Hang banners/posters advertising your website in
  public areas
• Have staff wear buttons advertising website
• Change the existing practice home page on each
  computer to your website

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More Reasons to Market Your Patient Portal
According to a recent study, 62 of patients
indicated the ability to communicate with their
doctors online would influence their choice of
healthcare providers
Some 57 of consumers want a secure Internet site
that would enable them to access their medical
records, schedule office visits, refill
prescriptions and pay medical bills

• Online patient portal communication enables
• Health maintenance and prevention
• Valuable and reliable patient education handouts
  and interactive videos
• Facilitates communication to your entire patient
  base for mass announcements and health reminders
  that can drive revenue
• e.g., flu shot notices during flu season

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Agenda

• Navigating the challenges of healthcare
• Introducing patient portals
• Now is the time to invest
• How to succeed? Marketing.
• Real Results Womens Health Partnership
• Summary
• Questions

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Real Life Example Womens Health Partnership

• About Our Practice
• Carmel, Indiana
• 48 Physicians
• 7 NPs
• 1 PA
• 9 locations in Central Indiana
• Implemented PM and EMR in April,2008
• Services bone density scans, ultrasounds,
  ablations, permanent birth control
• Number of patients seen 120,000 patients /year

In our estimation, Medfusion has the most
comprehensive website patient portal in the
market for ambulatory care.
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Our Goals

• Become an administrative one-stop shop
• Offer convenience of online services to patients
• Further our mission to create a partnership with
  our patients in providing compassionate and
  innovative services

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The Solution

• We chose to implement a secure, HIPAA compliant
  patient portal that would seamlessly integrate
  with our existing PM and EMR
• Website with self-managed content
• Unlimited edits
• Easy to update site instantly
• Patient satisfaction survey
• Interactive patient education videos
• Interactive patient self-service applications
• Pre-registration
• Appointment Requests
• Health History Forms
• Online Bill Pay with budget payment plans
• Ask-A-Staff
• Patient Education

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Marketing For Success

• Educated patients about patient portal during
  each patient encounter on the phone, in the
  office, or mailed communication

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The Results

• Increased patient satisfaction
• Immediate decline in phone call volume
• Legible, complete, up-to-date patient forms
• Reprioritized staff tasks- off the phone
• Streamlined process to one system for payment
  instead of multiple merchant IDs for all
  locations
• Significant increase in revenue
• Positive impact to back office efficiencies
• Faster patient payments
• Budget payment plans offer convenience to
  patients

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Agenda

• Navigating the challenges of healthcare
• Introducing patient portals
• Now is the time to invest
• How to succeed? Marketing.
• Real Results Womens Health Partnership
• Summary
• Questions

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Summary

• Lessons Learned
• How patient portals bring value to a practice and
  patients
• The key components of a patient portal
• How patient portals can increase meaningful use
  of EHRs
• The steps to researching patient portals
• How to effectively roll out a patient portal
  within a practice and patients
• Real Results from patient portals

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Agenda

• Navigating the challenges of healthcare
• Introducing patient portals
• Now is the time to invest
• How to succeed? Marketing.
• Real Results Womens Health Partnership
• Summary
• Questions

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Questions?

• Thank

You
Dr. Chris Mernitz Womens Health
Partnership [phone] christopherm_at_whp.com
David Ledwith Regional Manager 877.599.5123 x
118 dledwith_at_medfusion.net