Digitally engage patients – your most under-utilized resources

Medical practices continue to hesitate to share records freely with patients. There could be many reasons for such caution. Patients could use the information to sue doctors when something goes wrong. Doctors templatize information – and therefore, when someone reads it, it may not make much sense. But what if we trusted patients to do the right thing? We trust them to use the information to take better care of themselves? And we teach them to do so. Then we could get a lot back in return – not just clinical returns of healthier patients but patients could also engage better with ambulatory surgery centers and specialty groups to lower administrative costs.

Here are a few ideas where patients could help doctors lower administrative costs for the front desk and other staff members.

Patients could:

• Update their demographics and insurance information through a web portal
• Upload images of insurance cards, driver’s license and social security via a patient portal into the EHR
• Read and sign consent forms
• Pay past dues
• Take clinical satisfaction surveys
• Complete clinical questionnaires

Patients are the most under-utilized resources in a care setting – if we trust them enough and engage them, everyone would win.