Why Portals Aren’t Always Ideal for Healthcare Communication

Customer portals are highly popular and are proliferating across every business and industry. Healthcare providers are arguably leading the charge when it comes to portals, as HIPAA regulatory requirements around data privacy have encouraged the use of secure portals for patients to access and share medical information.

The global market for patient portals is predicted to grow from $5.3 billion in 2022 revenues to over $15 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 18.9%. As of last year, close to two-thirds of US patients had used a portal to access online medical records, a rise of 50% over 2020. While these numbers seem like a sign of success, they reflect adoption rates that are slower than other industries.

Moreover, the above statistics hide the fact that patients ignore most of the functionalities that a portal offers. When people access their online medical records or patient portals, 90% of them do so just to view test results. Relatively few take advantage of their portals to schedule and cancel appointments, pay medical bills, contact healthcare providers, and consume information about treatments, vaccines, and health threats, even though the vast majority of portals support these activities.

This clearly isn’t because patients don’t need to carry out these actions. As we’ll discuss below, it’s because they don’t want to, or because it’s too challenging for them to. As a result, in healthcare, it’s often best to think outside the portal whenever possible.

The Limitations of Patient Portals

Portals are excellent for their primary use case: securely storing and sharing patient data. HIPAA regulations and the need to ensure patient confidentiality and data privacy require the high security of a patient portal. Portals ensure that data is protected from prying eyes but viewable by authorized parties, allowing patients to inform themselves about test results and clinical notes and giving them greater agency over their own healthcare.

But care providers use portals disproportionately. Because portals are secure, a great deal of clinic-patient communication has migrated there, including messages about scheduling, appointment reminders, information about post-vaccine or post-procedure care, and more. In these cases, there’s no need for the powerful protection and attendant friction of a portal, just for messages to go unseen.

Unless you’re sharing complete patient record archives in one go, then sending a secure, HIPAA-compliant email using Paubox is more than sufficient. This service encrypts all personal health information (PHI) both in transit and at rest, ensuring that only the patient and authorized providers can see sensitive data.

Healthcare providers simply compose their email as normal — Paubox automatically encrypts the email and any attachments using TLS 1.3 or 1.2 encryption. As a failsafe, if the recipient’s email server doesn’t support encryption, Paubox generates a secure link to view the message in the web browser. It’s more convenient for patients and providers, without the frustrations that are sparked by patient portals.

Here are a few of the main reasons why so many people avoid portals.

Too Much Friction

Logging into a patient portal is a barrier between the patient and the information they need. It can take several minutes and a lot of frustration for the user to remember or reset their password. What’s more, because of the high sensitivity of health information, most portals require the additional irritation of multi-factor authentication (MFA).

It’s not surprising that most patients don’t want to navigate into a portal just to open an appointment reminder. They know that they could simply Google post-surgery care, read a text message with a reminder, or call the receptionist to reschedule their appointment — all activities which are far smoother than logging into a portal.

Raising Security Fears

At a time when a new data breach or case of identity fraud seems to hit the headlines every week, many people are nervous about having too broad a digital presence. They worry that portals offer yet another path for criminals to steal their data, so they’re reluctant to register to use one.

This distrust is particularly high among older patients who aren’t as digitally confident. But they are the ones who are most likely to have chronic and/or complex health needs that require frequent appointments and communication, making it all the more problematic if your interactions are through a portal.

Sparking Digital Discombobulation

Patients don’t just avoid portals because they distrust them. They also aren’t sure how to use them, or are nervous that they’ll make a mistake that breaks the portal or compromises their data security. Faced with an unfamiliar interface, many patients feel confused and anxious.

A portal also forces patients to open another account that they need to keep track of and manage. It means they’re more likely to get flustered and forget which platform or login details they need. Again, this is particularly common among older patients, who often receive the most communications from their healthcare providers.

Not Always Accessible

Using patient portals comes with an assumption that patients can always access them, but that assumption is often false. Rural areas frequently have poor internet connectivity, and even in big cities, internet access can be patchy, especially in deprived areas.

It’s estimated that over one in six people living in poverty don’t have internet access, and even those with intermittent access can be disadvantaged by a reliance on portals. Someone who only has sporadic access can still end up missing a time-sensitive message.

Patient Portals Are Excellent, Within Limits

Despite the drawbacks, there’s no reason for healthcare providers to scrap patient portals. They are ideal for specific use cases, and they empower patients to access and manage their full medical history records. But they shouldn’t turn into the default for clinic-patient communication. The friction is necessary for everyday messages like reminders and follow-ups, so providers should keep portals alongside simpler communication methods.