What is a Patient Portal?

A patient portal uses the convenience of online access to streamline some of the most time-consuming interactions and tasks required of a medical practice.

By shifting non-urgent communications from telephone, "snail" mail and in-person methods to the web, practices will likely see improved efficiencies, reduced operating costs and increased patient satisfaction. In addition, the 24/7 Internet access to a patient portal allows patients and medical staff alike to request, provide and obtain information in a time frame that is more convenient for everyone involved.

How a patient portal helps your practice.

By conducting your most frequent patient interactions and practice tasks online — including scheduling, registration forms, information requests, billing and more — a medical practice can dramatically improve the efficiency of its front desk, billing and clinical staffs.

The reduction in paperwork, postage and other related costs can represent substantial savings, and the growing popularity of billable online patient/physician consultations provides a valuable new potential revenue source.

Software as a Service vs. an On Premise solution.

There are two types of Patient Portal software solutions. Software as a Service (SaaS) includes software, support and data storage hosted by a third party over the Internet. An On-Premise solution requires the purchase or licensing of software from a third party provider, but also requires subsequent IT, data storage and security duties be handled on site by medical practice personnel.

As a SaaS solution, the Intuit Health Patient Portal provides dedicated uptime, customer support and implementation, while automatically handling certification, security audits, system monitoring, insurance and risk responsibility for its clients.

While both SaaS and On Premise solutions require PC and Internet connections on site at the practice, there are key differences to consider.

Additional Requirements for an On Premise Solution vs. a (Intuit Health) SaaS solution

• Practice must provide and maintain data servers on site.
• Practice must take on responsibility of making sure portal software is up and running 24/7.
• Practice must take on data security responsibility.

Need additional information?

For more information, please call our sales specialists at: 877-599-5123 Monday-Friday 8am-5pm EST or, click here and provide the information we need to contact you.

^{*January 2010 online, national survey of 1,000 adults ages 18-65. Conducted by Decipher for Intuit Health.}