WoundExpert Flash #21

{Straight talk for clients}

Looking for a way to give patients easy and secure access to their health information? Look no further than the newly updated patient portal. Learn more about why the portal is a win-win for both you and your patients.

March 2019

Dear WoundExpert,

Some of my patients want on-demand access to their health information like visit summaries and discharge information. Is there a WoundExpert Patient Portal I can offer so patients can access the information they want?

The Solution

The WoundExpert Patient Portal is a simple and efficient way to give patients on-demand, secure access to their health information. In fact, as of January 1^st, WoundExpert’s Patient Portal got a fresh look and new features to make the experience even better. But your patients won’t be the only ones to benefit. We’re thankful for the feedback and ideas that you shared over the past year to help shape these changes and are excited to share ways that the Patient Portal will make your life easier too.

In this Flash, we’ll outline three reasons why you should consider expanding your use of the Patient Portal, whether that means getting your first patient on the portal or offering it to even more patients.

1) Reduce telephone calls and messages by facilitating communication using the portal.

• Patients can reference important discharge instructions or prescriptions from previous visits, view their upcoming appointments, and see their medical record information, including lab results, vitals, medications, and allergies. This simplifies things for the patient as they don’t need to worry about keeping track of this information themselves and as a result, can cut down on the number of phone calls you receive.
• Patients can maintain regular communication with their provider by messaging directly through the portal. If a patient has a non-urgent question in between visits, it’s simple to send a message within the portal, which is both convenient for the patient and can cut down on phone calls in the clinic.

2) Reduce the risk of negative drug interactions by facilitating a more efficient and accurate reconciliation process for medications and allergies. Your patients can advise you of their medications and allergies when they have the exact names and doses available to them rather than struggling to remember them on the spot. When the patient comes in for their next visit, you can review in person any medications or allergies they’ve added to their portal since their last visit and add them to the medical record.

3) Reduce administrative effort of identifying and maintaining authorized representatives.  Authorized representatives can have their very own account to the patient’s portal with the patient’s permission.

What now?

• To learn more about the Patient Portal, visit the How-To Documentation, and search for topics like ‘Patient Portal Enrollment’ to see how you can enroll a patient in the portal, or ‘Patient Portal Setup’ to learn how Facility Administrators can configure the welcome message and documentation views for the portal.
• Ready to invite patients?
  • If you are already configured for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) in WoundExpert, then you are able to use the portal (and likely have for some patients as a part of MIPS requirements). If not, have your facility administrator contact Customer Support at feedback@nethealth.com or 844-464-9348 option 2 to request access. There’s no extra cost, so why not give it a try?
  • Click here to download a handout that you can customize with your own logo and branding to advertise and instruct your patients on how to get set up for the portal.
• Want to make sure your current patients using the portal are getting the most out of it? Click here to download a handout you can use to highlight the latest portals advancements that were released January 1st.

WoundExpert Experts

This month’s contributor was Brittany Hartz, Net Health Product Analyst.

Connections Corner

Support Medicare documentation requirements for surgical dressing orders!

Are you ordering surgical dressings for Medicare patients? If so, the patient must have a qualifying wound for the dressing to be covered by Medicare. A qualifying wound is defined by CMS as either a wound caused or treated by a surgical procedure or a wound that requires debridement, regardless of the debridement technique. To help ensure that all Connections orders for surgical dressings are appropriately covered by Medicare, please ensure that prior to sending an order to one of our DME partners, that the medical record provides sufficient evidence supporting the fact that the wound in need of surgical dressings is a qualifying wound. If you have additional questions about documentation needs related to surgical dressings, please contact a representative at your preferred DME supplier.

Brought to you by Michael Ashbaugh, Account Manager.

Did you know?

Do you ever wonder about who has been making changes to a patient’s chart? If you have access to WoundExpert reports, you can utilize the Audit Logs to keep track of who is accessing or modifying parts of patients’ medical records. To do so, you will go to Reports > Operations > Audit Logs. Here you will find two different audit logs: Data Entry and Patient Access. If you are a Facility Admin, you can also check out the User Audit Report which gives transparency to see any new users that are created or any changes made to an existing user’s access.

     Brought to you by Gabi Burns, Client Advocate, Tier I