Vicki,
For correspondence I have 8 templates that were created by my wife based on good Up to Date data, on low chol diet, diabetes, exercise, smoking cessation, end of life, alcohol use, mammo letter, pap letter.
At the end of each summary I will indicate which particular handout to send with the summary. For example if discussed low chol diet and the Polst form, I will add at the end of the summary that the low chol diet handout and end of life handout was sent by secure portal, then my nurse will click on the template tab, the 8 options drop down, she clicks and attaches the appropriate ones to the summary.
Compared to what I do for the 1/3 of my patients without the portal-- she will paper print the summary, get a paper copy of the handout get a stamp, address the envelope and send to patient, so from a medical legal perspective I see no difference in either approach but from a practical approach and patient satisfaction the portal allows instantaneous transfer of patient information and those postage stamps saved pays for the 80 dollars per month I would rather pay Sean at Updox as a way of saying thank you.
Now there has been a learning curve, and some patients do not open their message, and my nurse has typed up an instruction sheet on how to access the portal that she will send by snail mail with thte summary and handouts, and most patients, once hooked do not want to go back to the former way of receiving correspondences.
Also with the pap and mammo letters, my nurse will automatically send the actual report and the templated letter of normal results as soon as the pap results or mammo crosses the updox portal site--or send by snail mail. Of course the abnormals come in for appt to discuss.
My nurse will put at the top of the mammogram report/pap report that the letter was sent as well and if you look up in the messages sent in Updox there is a record as well of the transmittal of correspondence.
Hope this helps--
