Five Ways Member Portals can Make Better Health More Accessible

What if best-in-class tools for managing your health could be as accessible as the phone in your pocket?

According to a 2023 survey from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, nearly 30 percent of Americans live in Primary Medical Health Professional Shortage Areas, and more than 49 percent live in Behavioral Health Professional Shortage Areas. But, 85 percent of Americans own a smartphone.  

When employers make healthcare resources available to employees and their families via member portals accessible through smartphones, watches, and connected devices, they create new opportunities for their people to keep track of and get care for their conditions. 

One-on-one virtual primary care, behavioral health, and occupational health appointments hosted on a phone or laptop can address shortages by connecting people in rural or understaffed areas with clinicians who are outside their immediate geographic area or difficult to schedule with. 

Plus, people with chronic conditions who engage with mobile health applications are better at self-managing their conditions and are more engaged with their care, because they can securely message with their provider and track important health data. 

What is My Premise Health? 

At Premise, we leverage the My Premise Health member portal to provide our members with the resources they need to make the best health decisions for themselves and their families. The My Premise Health application is a secure, fully integrated platform members can use to access and manage their healthcare anytime, anywhere.  

We made the leap to launch My Premise Health in 2018, when we chose Epic to be our primary care clinical platform. When we made the critical step to equip our provider teams with a single electronic health record (EHR) they can use across the continuum of care, we also implemented a member-facing app to make sure members can keep their health history up to date and get access to important information from their providers. 

The platform, available on web and mobile, provides Premise members with synchronous and asynchronous tools to connect with providers, get information on their conditions, and even find help in their community, all at their fingertips. Let’s take a deep dive into some of those tools and the exciting things you can do to manage your health at the touch of a button: 

_{The My Premise Health App is powered by MyChart® licensed from Epic Systems Corporation, © 1999 – 2023} 

What can you do with My Premise Health?

Schedule virtual and in-person appointments with your provider.  

Whether they’re a local employee looking to visit a provider at an on-campus wellness center or a dependent spouse looking for remote care while they’re on vacation, My Premise Health offers members the ability to schedule visits with a time and provider that works best for them. 

Without leaving the My Premise Health app, members can set up and attend Digital Wellness Center appointments – including 24/7 virtual primary care visits, virtual counseling sessions, and consultations with a virtual pharmacist. Or, for in-person appointments, they can skip the physical paperwork and submit their medical history ahead of their onsite appointment from wherever they are via the member portal.   

When members can schedule their own appointments and keep their records up to date, it empowers them to take control of their health and cuts out the middleman, making the process more convenient. As a result, patients spend more time working with their provider on what matters than doing paperwork in the waiting room. 

_{The My Premise Health App is powered by MyChart® licensed from Epic Systems Corporation, © 1999 – 2023} 

Message your care team – from your counselor to your pharmacist – for free.  

You may have seen headlines from more than 20 health systems across the U.S. that have recently announced they will bill patients for secure messages sent to their providers. It’s a response to growing demand on increasingly busy physicians who are spending valuable time responding to messages throughout the day from patients who want convenient expert support through secure messaging. 

Unfortunately, this limits access for members juggling busy schedules, managing multiple conditions, or working non-traditional hours who need to connect with their care team but struggle to schedule meetings in-person.

Premise Health members get unlimited access to secure messaging at no cost though My Premise Health and can reach out to their care team to answer questions, get education around their medications, and more. This opens a flexible line of communication with providers who can check and respond to messages when the time is right for them and meet members in the middle for a concierge experience. 

Find Help with Premise. 

Social determinants of health – the cultural, societal, and socioeconomic conditions people face where they live, work, and play – widely impact health outcomes and overall quality-of-life. When people don’t have access to a healthy environment or aren’t having their basic needs met, it can have just as much impact on their health as a serious medical condition. 

In 2021, we partnered with Find Help and added Find Help with Premise to our member portal to address the most common social determinants of health and associated barriers. Members can log onto their portal and use Find Help to access a wide variety of resources for social services and programs including food, housing, financial assistance, transportation, legal aid and more with over 450,000 listings across the U.S. 

All members have to do is search for resources in their area using their zip code, select the service that best addresses their need, and follow next steps directly from the site. While it may not traditionally be seen as health care, support for social determinants of health promotes wellness for the whole person, and helps members be their best selves at work and at home. 

Link accounts to view your test results from any Epic-enabled provider. 

More than 305 million patients worldwide have an electronic health record in Epic, and when we partnered with this leading healthcare software system to create My Premise Health, we opened the door for members to have access to all of their Epic health records at their fingertips.  

On one hand, it offers a new level of convenience for members: They no longer have to dig through paperwork to find the results of the last blood test they did at a community provider or switch between applications to message their specialist provider. It’s all available on the My Premise Health portal when they link their accounts. 

 But the impact goes deeper than that. With all of this information in one accessible, secure EHR, providers can work together to review labs and imaging, eliminate duplicative procedures, and take their patient’s full medical history into account to deliver the best possible care.   

Learn more about your condition with our health reference library. 

Curious about allergy shots? Looking for a list of side effects for over-the-counter drugs? Interested in learning more about safe food handling? A treasure trove of healthcare knowledge is waiting in My Premise Health’s reference library. 

While it’s no substitute for discussing urgent concerns with a provider, members can get answers to some of their common questions with informative modules, quick summaries, and even videos that tackle healthcare subjects in a way that’s quick and easy to understand.  

Members have this library readily available on My Premise Health when they need it and can feel assured that the information is coming from a trusted healthcare source and vetted by clinicians, unlike information online that can be inaccurate or out of date. 

Member portals help prioritize continuity of care in your health benefits strategy. 

When employers partner with Premise Health, their people get access to the best in tech-enabled care, from accessible in-person and virtual appointments to support for life’s emergencies to one streamlined location for all of their important health data. My Premise Health is just one way we provide a convenient, secure, and personalized member experience that goes beyond the walls of our health centers. 

Contact us to learn more about how you can bring clinically brilliant whole-person care to your people today.