Do therapists even need a patient portal?

The short answer is no.

What is a patient portal?

A patient portal is a secure online website that allows patients to communicate with their healthcare providers while safeguarding their protected health information (PHI).

Patient portals allow patients to:

• Message their provider
• Make payments
• Complete forms and registration
• Book appointments
• Request prescription refills

While patient portals may save you time on redundant paperwork, they can also be inconvenient and hard to navigate. Patient portals are meant to increase patient engagement because each patient is actively participating in their own healthcare when they utilize a portal. But the extra steps toward communication in a portal have patients feeling frustrated and less engaged than they were before.

Email vs. patient portals

Because of the extra steps needed to communicate with providers through portals, many patients prefer to email their providers. 91% of adults in the United States utilize email, while 40% of patients accessed their records only once in 2021. Patient portals not only require users to learn a new program but they also require patients to check regularly for messages from their providers. It is much easier for a patient to communicate through a simple email rather than going through multiple steps to reach their provider through a portal.

Having a patient portal also does not mean more protection for your PHI. Portals achieve security through multi-step password solutions and often require the user to take extra steps to ensure everything is secure. This burdens healthcare staff and is bound to lead to mistakes.

According to a study by IBM, 95% of cybersecurity breaches result from human error. 

With Paubox Email Suite, emails are automatically encrypted and you never have to worry about sending an email in error because every email sent from your location is secured.

The email suite works directly with your existing email and sends HIPAA compliant emails without portals and passcodes. It's incredibly easy not only for your practice to use but also for your patients. There is no training and no extra steps to go through. You simply click "send" and your patients simply click "open."

See more: Why email is better than patient portals

So no, therapists do not need to utilize patient portals because communicating through our HITRUST CSF certified solution is much easier and more secure than any portal.

Try Paubox Email Suite for FREE today.

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