A report from Frost and Sullivan called U.S. Patient Portal Market for Hospitals and Physicians: Overview and Outlook, 2012-2017 predicts that patient portal use will increase by 221.1 percent. (For those who like dollar signs, that's an expected growth to $898.4 million in 2017.)
I tend to request my medical records on CD, but my wife uses patient portals extensively. They're terrific. She prints out the vaccination records for the kids to give to the school nurses. She can verify the dosage of medication the kids may have if they get sick. She can check appointments.
So what's the problem? There isn't any as long as the system she uses is secure. Her physician's practice requires every patient to pay for their patient portal. (Mine doesn't, so it is not a requirement for patients to pay a fee for it.) He told her that the practice has to pay extra insurance costs to prevent hacking.
That's the concern I always have. The patient portal she uses does not have our home address or Social Security numbers, but just the name and date of birth are two critical pieces of information need for identity theft. The rest is not hard to find. My wife found her late father's Social Security number on a government website. Is it any wonder that identity theft is an ongoing concern?
www.healthcareIT.frost.com
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