DECEMBER 2014 The Costco Connection 61
By Alice Shapin
MARYLAND RESIDENT Judy Schricker
hated being put on hold whenever she wanted
to schedule a doctor’s appointment or needed
to get her test results. Now the Costco member does it all through her patient portal. If
you haven’t used or heard about patient portals, you will soon. Like many things we do in
our lives—banking, shopping, scheduling—
health care is going online and mobile.
Dr. Peter Basch of MedStar Health in
Columbia, Maryland, says, “A patient portal is
a secure online website that gives patients
24-hour access to view their own medical
information and lets them communicate
securely with their physician or [members of
their] health-care team.”
One drawback to the current state of
patient portals is that they are tied to individual
physicians or health-care organizations. So if
your doctors are not part of one organization,
All patient portals allow you to access a
summary of your visits, including your lab
reports; securely email questions to your
physician; and send your medical informa-
tion to another doctor. But many portals
have more features.
Christine Paige, senior vice president for
marketing and Internet services at Kaiser
Permanente and a Costco member in Oakland,
California, says, “We were one of the first to
roll out a patient portal. It really took off in
2004, when Kaiser put in electronic health
records and we were able to communicate
Patient portals put your
health info a click away
Portal power
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with our patients.” Today Kaiser’s portal
offers its patients all the basics, plus it lets
patients make appointments, get prescriptions refilled and pay their bills online. And
everything can be done on a mobile device,
such as a smartphone.
Basch notes, “Having your medical records
online makes life easier. If you need a copy of
your children’s immunization records for
school, it’s a click away. Or if on a weekend
you happen to cut yourself and can’t remem-
ber when your last tetanus shot was, the infor-
mation is online.”
Washington, D.C., resident Chris Swear-
ingen, who considers herself a digital dino-
saur, says, “I have to admit it was easy to sign
up and use the patient portal.” And the Costco
member has been glad she did: “When I went
to a new doctor, I always had to remember to
for your health
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