With the Patient Portal, you can allow new patients to register with your practice and schedule their first appointment online.
Introduction
Your practice has several options for handling new patient registration and appointment scheduling on the Patient Portal.
- Each provider and each department in your practice can specify one new patient appointment type. For example, an OB/GYN provider might allow new patients to schedule appointments of type New OB/GYN, whereas a cardiologist might allow new patients to schedule a first appointment of type Cardio-Int.
- Departments in your practice can set up new patient appointment types for use across all providers within one department.
- You can use a practice-wide default appointment type for all new patients who register and schedule their first appointments on the Patient Portal.
After you configure your appointment types, you can use the Appointments Scheduled via Communicator page to review your patients' actions conducted on the Patient Portal.
You can also assign online forms to appointment types so that patients can enter appointment-specific information using the Patient Portal before arriving for the appointment. For more information, see the Assign Forms to Appointment Types page and the Patient Portal Health Forms page.
Children under age 13 not allowed to register for the Patient Portal
In accordance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), patients under the age of 13 cannot create self-registered Patient Portal accounts, and you cannot register or invite new Patient Portal users under the age of 13. Existing users under the age of 13 cannot access the Patient Portal using their previous credentials and are instructed to set up family access.
For patients under 13 years old, we recommend that you set up a family access account for a parent or other caregiver to access the patient's health and billing information through the Patient Portal. For information about registering a family member, see To register a patient for the Patient Portal or Patient Information Center in the office and To create a Patient Portal account from an email invitation or notification.
Note: If you delete or change a patient's email and that email was connected to the Patient Portal accounts of other family members, those mappings will need to be re-established under the new email.
Deep dive into Patient Portal registration: Two-factor authentication
The best way to register patients for the Patient Portal is to register them in your office or to send them an email invitation. These methods are preferred because athenaOne knows who the patient is, who the provider is, and what department the patient is registered in; there's no need to ask the patient to enter any demographic information.
For example, when the patient receives an email invitation, opens it, and clicks Register Now:
- The first factor of authentication is the email itself.
- The second factor is the call or text message that the patient receives to confirm her identity.
Your practice has the patient's email address and phone number, and the patient's identity is confirmed when she responds to a message that the Patient Portal sends to the corresponding device.
When patients register for the Patient Portal on their own
When one of your patients searches the Internet for your practice, finds your website, and decides to register for the Patient Portal on their own (without an email invitation from your practice), no electronic link exists between the patient and your practice. The Patient Portal collects some initial information:
- Is this a patient or a patient's family member?
- Basic demographic information about the patient: first name, last name, gender, DOB, phone number, and email address.
The Patient Portal attempts to match this demographic information to existing patients at your practice by checking the first name, last name, gender, DOB, and either the phone number or email address. Even if this information matches one of your patients in athenaOne, the information constitutes only one factor of authentication, so the Patient Portal cannot tell the user whether it has confirmed that she is a patient at your practice.
Someone could fraudulently enter another person's first name, last name, gender, DOB, and phone number on the Patient Portal in an attempt to "phish" for PHI. The Patient Portal cannot reveal anything, including whether the named person is a patient at the practice, until there is a second factor of authentication, such as confirming the person's identity via phone or text message.
For this reason, the Patient Portal then asks the user to confirm his identity via phone or text message. After the user confirms his identity, the Patient Portal can safely indicate the user's next steps:
- If the user is an existing patient at your practice and enters the correct demographic information, the Patient Portal matches the user to a patient at your practice. This user sets a password and completes the Patient Portal registration without any issues.
- If the user is an existing patient at your practice but enters demographic information that does not match a patient record for your practice in athenaOne, a warning message instructs the user to call your office to resolve the problem. This user should not continue the Patient Portal registration process.
- If the user is a brand new patient, the demographic information she enters will not match any patient record for your practice in athenaOne. The Patient Portal prompts the user to select a provider and location, and then create a password. After the user does this, she is registered as a new patient at your practice, with the correct provider, department, and provider group; the user is also registered for the Patient Portal.
Note: New patients who register for your practice on the Patient Portal appear on the Manage Prospective Patients page.
Step-by-step instructions
To allow new patients to register and schedule their first appointments using the Patient Portal, follow these steps.
- Use the Patient Appointment Reasons Settings page to add or update the patient appointment reasons that new patients can select on the Patient Portal. You can customize the description that is displayed with each reason on the Patient Portal.
- Use the Appointment Settings page to designate which appointment types can be used for Patient Portal scheduling.
- Use the page to edit existing schedule templates to include the new appointment types.
- Use the Manage Applied Templates page to modify the template application and transform your current slots into new-patient slots when and where desired.
- Contact the CSC by selecting Support > Create Case or Call in the Main Menu to request that new patient registration and scheduling functionality be enabled for your practice.
To configure patient appointment reasons
- Display the Patient Appointment Reasons Settings page: On the Main Menu, click Settings
> Schedule. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Communicator, click Patient Appointment Reasons Settings. - Click Add new.
- Reason — Select the patient appointment reason that you want to enable patients to select on the Patient Portal.
Note: To see the list of global appointment reasons, see Global patient appointment reasons. Many reasons have telehealth versions that you can select, as well. - Description — You can edit the default reason description that appears on the Patient Portal.
- Patients — Select All to make this reason available to both existing patients and new patients. Select New to make this reason available only to new patients registering and scheduling their first appointment, or select Existing to make this reason available only to existing patients who are already registered in the practice.
- Click Save or Save and Add Another to configure additional patient appointment reasons.
To designate appointment types for Patient Portal scheduling
- Display the Appointment Types page: On the Main Menu, click Settings > Schedule. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Scheduling, click Appointment Types.
- Click edit next to the appointment type that you need.
Additional fields appear. - Display Name (under Patient Portal) — Enter the appointment type name as it should appear on the Patient Portal.
- Click Save.
To review and edit appointment settings
- Display the Appointment Settings page: On the Main Menu, click Settings > Schedule. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Communicator, click Appointment Settings.
- Click the plus sign (+) to expand the section for Appointment Reasons, Web Scheduling, or Appointment Email settings. Review the current settings for each provider in each department in which they see patients.
Note: The department you are in expands by default. - Click Practice, Department, or Custom in a section to view the existing settings for each provider.
Note: If the provider is using the practice default settings, Practice is displayed next to the provider name. If the provider is using the department default settings, Department is displayed. If the provider has settings specific to him or her in that department, Custom is displayed in the table. - Click Edit settings to modify the practice, department, or custom settings.
- Appointment reasons — Select No changes to leave the current settings for appointment reasons unchanged. Select Edit settings to make changes. Select Restore practice/department settings to remove any custom settings applied to the selected provider and use the department settings instead.
- Select the Appointment Type for each patient appointment reason.
Note: All patient appointment reasons that you enabled on the Patient Appointment Reasons Settings page are displayed. Select None — no appointments in Portal if this provider does not see patients for the given reason. All appointment types that the provider has used in their schedule or schedule template are available in the drop-down list. - Web scheduling — Select No changes to leave the current settings unchanged. Select Edit settings to make changes. Select Restore practice/department settings to remove any custom settings applied to the selected provider and use the department settings instead.
Note: When editing settings, each appointment type that the provider has used in their schedule or schedule template is displayed.- Allow web scheduling — Select this option to allow patients to schedule appointments of this type for this provider from a tickler and to reschedule or cancel existing appointments on the Patient Portal.
- Allow appointments within next X days — Enter the maximum number of days in the future that a patient can schedule an appointment.
- Disallow scheduling/cancellation within X hours — Enter the minimum number of hours before an appointment that a patient can schedule, reschedule, or cancel the appointment.
Note:You must enter a whole number in this field. - Require cancellation reason — Select this option if a patient must provide a reason when cancelling an appointment on the Patient Portal.
Note: The Allow web scheduling option is selected and cannot be cleared after you map that appointment type to a patient appointment reason, making it available to patients when they schedule new appointments using that appointment type. Patients can also schedule, reschedule, or cancel these appointment types from a tickler. To make an appointment type not available for Web scheduling, remove the mapping for the Patient Appointment Reason.
Note: If an appointment type is Generic (see the Appointment Types page) and is marked to allow Web scheduling, all slots on the schedule template for this provider are available for all other appointment types. If selected, this appointment type will be mapped to the reason that the patient selects, just as when practice staff schedules an appointment into a generic slot.
- Appointment email — Select No changes to leave the current settings unchanged. Select Edit settings to make changes. Select Restore practice/department settings to remove any custom settings applied to the selected provider and use the department settings instead.
Note: When editing settings, each appointment type that the provider has used in their schedule or schedule template is displayed.- Confirmation email — Select this option to send an email immediately when a patient schedules that appointment type with the provider and when the staff schedules an appointment for the patient with the provider. The confirmation email is sent 3hours after the staff creates the appointment.
Note: If you want confirmation emails sent when all appointments are scheduled, except for same-day or next-day appointments, you can turn off confirmation emails for those specific appointment types. - Reminder email — Ignore this field. To configure reminder emails, see ReminderCall Settings.
- Confirmation email — Select this option to send an email immediately when a patient schedules that appointment type with the provider and when the staff schedules an appointment for the patient with the provider. The confirmation email is sent 3hours after the staff creates the appointment.
- Click Save.
To edit a schedule template
Important: Updating a template does not automatically change the provider schedule where the template is used. Any slots you created using the former version of the template still exist. To modify the provider's schedule, use the Manage Applied Templates page.
- Display the page: On the Main Menu, click Settings > Schedule. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Scheduling, click Build & Apply Templates.
- In the list of templates at the bottom of the page, locate the template that you want to apply to a provider's schedule. You can use the Department and Provider multi-select filters to limit the list. To view templates not associated with a specific department, select "Any" from the Department filter.
- Click the edit link to the left of the template. The page appears.
- You can make changes using a drag-and-drop method to add new slots, remove slots, or rearrange slots. You can also change the provider, department, or name of the template using the fields provided.
- To remove a slot, click and drag it off the schedule grid.
- To add a new slot, select an appointment type from the Select Appointment Type: list, and then drag the box surrounded in blue onto the schedule grid.
Note: If you need to add slots to the beginning or end of the day, you must change the start and end times to display open space on the schedule grid. - To add a "waved" slot (that is, two or more appointment slots in a single time slot), drag an appointment type into the small gray shaded area to the right of the existing slot until a red outline appears. Drop the slot next to the existing one.
To modify a template application
- Display the Manage Applied Templates page: On the Main Menu, click Settings > Schedule. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Scheduling, click Manage Applied Templates.
- You can use the filter fields to help you locate the template application that you want to modify. Click the select link for the template that you want to modify. The template application details appear at the top of the page.
- Review the details before you proceed.
- When you are satisfied that you want to modify the template application, click Modify. The update fields appear at the top of the page.
- You can modify the dates, recurrence type, and whether holidays are skipped. You cannot modify the provider or department.
- Click Preview Changes to view the result of the modifications. The following information appears:
- Deleted Slots: The number of empty slots that will be deleted.
- Created Slots: The number of new slots that will be created, or inserted, into the schedule.
- Appointments to be Merged: The number of empty or filled slots that overlap the new template and will be merged. "Merged" means that no change or rescheduling is required for booked slots.
- Appointments to Require Rescheduling: The number of frozen slots and slots marked scheduled where the new recurrence does not overlap.
- Carefully review the information. You can click Cancel to cancel your changes.
- When you are satisfied that you want to modify the template application, click Apply. A confirmation message appears, summarizing the changes.
Note: The appointment slots are modified and existing appointments are merged or marked as requiring rescheduling. Appointments that are marked as requiring rescheduling appear on the Workflow Dashboard in the Appointments to Reschedule column. - Reschedule or cancel the appointments that appear on the Workflow Dashboard in the Appointments to Reschedule column.
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