Overview
You may log into the Patient Portal and view it as the patient would from inside the patient's chart. You may even make changes from the portal but it is not recommended that you do so. Should you need to make changes to a patient's information, do so from the EHR, in the patient's chart specifically.
Related Articles
- View & Troubleshoot Patient's Portal Access
- Enabling Patient Portal Access
- Invite Patients to Join the Portal or to Reset their Portal Password
- The Patient Portal Onboarding Tool
- Patient Portal Access - multiple accounts under a single email address
- Patient Portal Overview
Details
There are several scenarios in which you may need to log into the portal to see what the patient will see when they log in. For example,
- you may have released a document or other information to the portal and you want to make sure it has saved properly, or you may want a refresher on where that information can be accessed from the portal;
- you may want to see if some questionnaires that are conditionally displayed are appearing for a patient;
- you may want to double-check whether a patient has indeed uploaded a file, or other information to the portal;
- you may need a patient to fill out a questionnaire on a practice-owned device, like a tablet.
Logging into the portal as the patient
- Open the patient's chart, either from the "Search Patients" bar, or elsewhere
- Go to Pt Portal >> Log into Portal as Patient
- This will open a new window which will have you choose whether you want to log out of the EMR or stay logged in. If you are handing your computer or tablet to a patient to fill out forms, ALWAYS choose "Log me out of the EMR and launch". This ensures that the EMR and all patient records are not accessible to the patient whose account you are logging into. This is very important to maintain the security of PHI! As such, it is the default option.
- Once you've made your selection, click the green "Log into [Patient Name]'s portal" button shown above. The system will open a new browser tab and log into the patient's portal account, and (if selected) log out of the EMR. Once logged in to the portal, you or the patient can use the tabs for navigation and read or complete any requested items.
This article was first published on March 23rd, 2018, and most recently edited on June 9th, 2021.
Alternate search terms: train patient on portal, teach patient about portal, client portal, view portal as patient, use portal as patient