Instantly view a patient's portal status by looking at the secure message icon shown in the patient's photo block in the top left-hand corner of the patient dash. You can hover over the icon to see additional information.
Patient Portal Access is Disabled
A red secure message icon means that patient portal access for that patient is OFF. There are a few possible reasons for this:
(1) Access was manually disabled by a staff member, or the patient's status was set to Inactive or Deceased, thereby disabling Patient Portal access.
- To fix this issue, confirm that their email address is correct, then manually turn on their access, if desired. They will then be able to log in using the username and password they originally set. NOTE, to ensure that messages from your system are received in the future, you may want to also direct them to whitelist (add to safe senders) do-not-reply@md-hq.com, notifications@md-hq.com, or the whole @md-hq.com domain, if possible.
(3) When the patient was added manually, they were missing an email address and/ or a zip code (which are both required for Patient Portal access). To fix this:
- Add the missing information. If they do not have an email address, you can add a dummy email address. However, they will not be able to request their own patient portal password reset in the future without an genuine email address on file.
- Turn on their Patient Portal access.
- Then send them an invitation to set up their username and password. If they do not have an email address, you can instead manually set their username and password and then share that login information with them.
Patient has Access, but has Never Logged In
A gold/ orange secure message icon means that the patient can access the Patient Portal but has never done so. To troubleshoot their access/ login issues:
- Check their username under Patient Information > Patient Portal. If it is blank, send them an invitation to set up their username and password.
- If they already have a username, remind them what their username is, and the URL for your Patient Portal. Then you may also send them an invitation to reset their password, if needed.
Patient has Access and has Logged in Before
A blue secure message icon means that the patient is set up on the Patient Portal and has accessed his or her portal account. To troubleshoot their access/ login issues:
- Remind the patient of their username (found under Patient Information > Patient Portal), and the URL for your Patient Portal.
- Then send them an invitation to reset their password, if needed.
Potential Trouble Spots
If the patient is regularly having trouble accessing the Patient Portal, or continues to have trouble after a password reset, the issue may be with the username, not the password. Common issues that come up with the username:
- An old/ incorrect username is saved and auto-filling via their browser's autofill functionality/ saved login information functionality. When reminding them of the username or sending a password reset, you can remind them to make sure to delete any autofilled values and type in their username and password.
- Their username is an old email address that they no longer use/ is no longer their email address on file. This isn't inherently problematic, just likely to cause confusion.
- There are multiple family members who share an email address, and the username for one of those family members is the shared email address. Again, this is not inherently problematic, just a common source of confusion.
Another issue that can arise is where the patient is not receiving the invitation/ reset emails. Sometimes these get filtered into spam or otherwise out of the patient's main inbox. They will want to check their spam/ junk mail folders, and search for an email from do-not-reply@md-hq.com. If they find it, they'll want to mark it as safe/ not spam to ensure that future messages can be delivered to their inbox. If they cannot find it, they should whitelist (add to safe senders) do-not-reply@md-hq.com, notifications@md-hq.com, or the whole @md-hq.com domain, if possible, to make sure that messages can be delivered to their email account in the future. Then you can resend the invitation/ reset email.