Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Medical Web site

I don't have one and everyone says I need one.

Who are you using? Why? How much?

Should I try to do it my self?

Frank,

Good question that I've been asking myself as well.
One pretty good site that I know of is that of a doc in NYC which incidentally uses Updox.
http://www.doctorcoghill.com

John

A website doesn't seem as important to me as it once did. It's for increasing your credibility to prospective patients. You can purchase a domain name at godaddy.com to keep your options open. Google business will give you free email on that domain name to give a good impression sooner than later

I think a patient portal is what patients are coming to expect. It will satisfy and help retain patients, whose word of mouth is gold. It can improve the efficiency of your office, which is gold too.

It would be perfect if you could put a patient portal seamlessly inside your domain, but don't hold your breath. I really do like Dr Coghill's site for tying it together.

With ICD-10 coming, doing it all is a lot to chew on.

Thank you Dan!

and John

Can you give me some critique on my website?

heritagefamilymed.com

Christopher?

It's a nice looking website. As far as "patient usability" is concerned, the only suggestion I'd make is to have a separate menu item called "Patient Portal" or "Portal." Other than that, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish with the website, if there are "difficulties" that you encounter with patients that you feel the website can help you solve or if there is informaiton you feel patients are expecting you to provide and you need a quick and easy way to provide it. You already have your registration forms posted, and your background.

For example, I found we were being inundated with questions that tied us up on the phone, like "What exactly is involved in a physical?" or "Can't you tell me exactly what blood tests I'll be given? I'll wait while you look them up." This led me to develop a FAQs page. Incidentally, that's also why I made the "About Dr. Coghill" page. Still, people get offended when I don't agree to sit there on the phone and answer each individual question.

Chris,

Fantastic website!!!!

The only other thought I had and it really depends how you want to direct your workflow. So take my observation for what it is worth from a 50 year old curmudgeon not wanting to expand his practice or take on new patients. However, once you get into the portal of Updox, several paragraphs describing the portal and how you want to work it may be helpful.

If you click "portal" on the Updox workspace, then click on "portal profile", then on "about us" tab, you can put in some information on the ground rules for using the portal. Such as how to message the practice or receive messages from practice. Only non-emergent messages, so forth and so on.

I think this increases the messaging to and fro the office and cuts down on phone traffic and voice mail.

Instead of using the Updox schedule for patients to fill out, I have found that having the Lytec schedule, Updox worksite to manage the portal traffic, and AC at my nurses fingertips, and using only one employee (HER) to manage the intersecting 3 apps has been a tremendous boon to efficiency.

Like I said, this is from a guy who is trying to slow down and work smarter. The emphasis on try.

Frank,

I do not have a public website nor do I plan on one. I think the private Updox portal site more than adequately functions for the secure messaging feature, forms, and appointments (not the Updox scheduler, but patient messaging and requesting an appointment). I figure about 30% of appointments being made are now by secure message requests and not phone or voice mail requests.

I wish I could figure out how to get it up to 30%. I thought updox would take a load off my receptionist's phone ear, but not so far!

Chris,

I think several factors may be in play for achieving the 30%. My nurse functions as the "receptionist" to a large degree, and we tag team educate the portalized patient, with the following logic. You call, you get our front office gal, and likely get channeled to voice mail, which is usually handled when my nurse has a few minutes to take care of the multiple batched calls. You message us, and it pops up on my nurse's computer screen(s)*, and in real time easier, quicker and more efficient use of everyones' time.

Most of my portal message appointment requests are for same day or semi-urgent, with in a few days of messaging to rooming appointments.

Once patients get use to the idea, they generally rarely use the phone for other issues, such as refills, and simple questions, the true receptionist would not be able to handle anyway.

The downside is that when my nurse is out, the operation is quite crippled, but I can take on quite a bit of the Updox traffic at that point to absorb the float nurse from being overwhelmed

*Sandeep--I have not gotten DisplayFusion yet, but plan to