*NOTE - the specific options available on the Patient Portal, instructions, and certain other details differ from one clinic to the next, depending on the clinic's preferences and customizations. This article provides general information about this Patient Portal page, but the design and specific details may vary for your clinic's Patient Portal, or the page itself may not be available.


You can send secure, encrypted electronic messages to your provider's office, and view messages they have sent to you, under My Secure Messages.


Messages are shown in reverse chronological order and in a threaded format. Click Send a Secure Message to open a new message sending window. Click on Reply or Send Follow Up within a message area to send a secure message back to the office regarding that specific message.


If the message from your provider's office is in regards to a specific document (e.g., lab results), then the document will show up as an attachment to the message, and you can click on the attachment link to open the associated document. The document itself will also be shared with you on the Labs & Documents tab of the portal.


Send a Secure Message

Note that you cannot attach a document to your provider's office to a secure message you are sending to your provider's office. To share a document with your provider, you would go to Labs & Documents.


The secure message sending options may differ for your provider's office, but will always have a spot for your message subject, and message body. You may additionally see:

  • A drop down menu for designating which person or department) the message is for, or designating the general topic of your message.
  • A drop down menu for specifying how you would prefer a reply to come to you.
  • One or more checkboxes for specific acknowledgements (for example, that secure messages are for non-urgent requests, or acknowledging that there may be a charge for provider time spent in responding).



Limitations on, or Charges for Secure Messages


To better manage the flow of secure messages that they are receiving, your provider's office may have certain limitations on secure messages, and/ or charges for responding to secure messages. The instructions and/or required acknowledgement checkbox(es) will indicate if any such limitations or charges may apply. Please contact your provider's office with any questions about their limitations on, or preferred protocols for, secure messages.


See also:

Other keywords: secure email, private message