This article covers how to assign Online EHR Forms to your patients via the Patient Portal. You'll first need to ensure that you have the Patient Portal purchased on your MacPractice License and it is up and running.

We'll cover the workflow from beginning to end, including the perspective of the patient so you can assist your patients as best you can. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact MacPractice Support and we will assist you.

Creating a Patient Portal User

First, we'll need to ensure that your patient has a Portal User properly set up. This will allow them to access their Patient Portal and any forms you send them.

To do this, you'll first navigate to the Patients Ability in MacPractice. Select the intended patient, and then navigate to the Patient tab. From there, you can select the Portal Access sub-tab in the bottom half of the Patients window. In the sub-tab, click the Green Plus.

Entering the Patient Credentials

When you click the Green Plus, a window will open allowing you to select a Portal User. If you already had a Portal User set up, you could search for and select it here by using the search fields and double clicking the desired Portal User. However, you will likely want to create a unique Portal User for this particular patient.
To create a new Portal User, you'll click the Green Plus in the upper right corner of this window. A New record will be created. You'll need to set the patient's Username, First Name, and Last Name. A typical Username convention is to use the patient's name in lowercase letters, but anything can be used.
You'll also want to set a Phone Number and an Email. The Email field is especially important, as any Online EHR Forms sent to this patient will generate an email to notify the patient that they have forms waiting for them to fill out.

Once you've filled out these fields, you'll either need to click the Create button or the Reset Password button. This will bring up a window where you can set the password for the patient, or you can choose to simply click the "Generate Password" button to have a randomized password generated for the patient. If no password is chosen, a Username and Password card will automatically be printed.    This card can be given to the patient so they have the credentials required to log in to their Patient Portal.

You can also check the "Print Portal Instructions" checkbox, which will generate printable instructions for the patient to follow.

Please note that you must print off the Username and Password card, otherwise you will not be able to  create the user.

When done, click the Create button in the lower right. This will create the Portal User and assign it to the patient.

Sending an Online Form to a Patient

To send an Online Form to a Patient, we'll first need to make sure we have either your EHR or your Clipboard Ability added to the MacPractice Toolbar. If you don't have them, you can add them by right clicking the toolbar and clicking Customize Toolbar, then simply dragging and dropped either icon to the Toolbar from the resulting window. 

Once you have your ability added, you'll navigate to it. Confirm that you have your patient still selected. In the Sidebar, look for the Patient Portal header, and click on the Registration Forms node. Click the Green Plus in the sidebar. This will bring up a Template Selection window.

From here, you'll simply check the templates you'd like to send to your Patient in the upper table, and then in the "Select Patient Portal User To Complete Forms" drop down, ensure you have the correct Patient Portal user selected. If you have any special instructions for the patient, you can include them in the Special Instructions text field at the bottom of the window.

Once satisfied, click Send. This will transmit the forms to the patient's Portal page.

Receiving an Online Form from Patient's perspective

When a form is sent to a patient, an e-mail is generated to be sent to the Portal User's e-mail address, as described in Entering the Patient Credentials. It will be sent from the Patient Portal practice name, and the contents will include your practice's Portal URL. The contents will look something like this:

When they click the green "Log In To Your Account" button, they'll be taken to the Sign In webpage on your Patient Portal.

Here, they will enter the Username and Password you provided to them, and click the Log In button. They will initially be placed on the Summary page. From here, they will want to click their name in the navigation bar to select their patient details, and then click the Forms tab.

From here, they can click the form they need to fill out. Once the form has been submitted it can be accessed once again in the EHR ability under Registration Forms. From there, the form can be dragged into one of the incidents listed to associate the form with a particular incident.