What belongs in a patient portal?

The Core

Appointments. Book, reschedule, cancel – with rules per appointment type to ensure no incorrect time slots are booked.

Pre-filled forms. Medical history, consents, master data. Saves time in the waiting room and provides readable information instead of handwriting.

Secure messages. Questions without phone calls, with clearly communicated response times.

What Makes Sense Afterwards

• Prescription requests
• View findings, if medically authorized
• Upload documents
• Invoices for private practices

The Decisive Hurdle

Access. A too complicated registration process leads to the portal not being used and calls remaining. A too simple one jeopardizes health data.

A viable approach: Initial registration in the practice with identity verification, followed by a simple but secured access.

Legal Requirements

• Encryption during transmission and storage
• Roles and rights, also for relatives and caregivers
• Deletion concept for portal accounts
• Logging of accesses
• Accessibility – relevant for certain offers since June 28, 2025

What Determines Success

Not the functional variety, but whether the practice actually uses the portal. A portal where messages remain unanswered for three days creates more dissatisfaction than it saves calls.

Before implementation, it should be clarified who looks into it when.