Home Health and Hospice Industry News and Blog

Care Plan Oversight: What Are Physician Portals in Home Health Care?

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by Corey Fletcher & True Nguyen

You may have heard this term used over the years synonymously with Care Plan Oversight for physicians.  But do you really know what a "physician portal" is or does?  Sure you do……a physician portal allows us to send documents to our physicians.  That statement is somewhat accurate, but you can say the same thing about our current methods: faxing, mailing, etc.  The fundamental difference is the ability to send documents electronically.  In today's times, healthcare continues to trend noticeably away from paper-based documents and towards electronic information and communication. 

In our industry, it is rare to find a home care agency or a physician practice that does not utilize some type or form of medical software or electronic record keeping.  The greater challenge is for us to get information to each other without producing paper.  This is where physician portals come in.  By bridging the gap between physicians and the home care agency, physician portals are quickly becoming an easy-to-use and cost effective solution to our current processes.  This concept benefits both parties in a number of ways.  Agencies benefit because it reduces overhead and provides a way to manage documentation sent to the physician.  Physicians benefit because they can streamline the process for signing orders, create a more efficient office, and capture the information needed to bill for Care Plan Oversight. 

Although the fundamental concept behind physician portals is the same, there are two primary types of portals on the market today.  There are software-dependent and independent physician portals.  Software-dependent physician portals are specific to a home care agency's software.  In other words, these portals lack flexibility at the physician level and can only work with one agency at a time.  Independent physician portals are not specific to home health software.  These portals provide flexibility to physicians and have the ability to work with multiple agencies at a time.  As a leader in the Home Care and Hospice industries, HEALTHCAREfirst has developed and launched firstCPO, its own independent physician portal earlier this year.