Patient Portal Update

August 8, 2022

We are excited to let you know that as of Monday, August 8th, Holzer is now sending more information to your patient portal. Previously, you only had access to review the following information through your patient portal: released lab results, medications, vaccines, and other great information. With our new release update, you will continue to get all the previous information and more.

In accordance with a national initiative in healthcare to provide patients with their health information without delay, we have automated the delivery of more of your health information to you. Which provides you more immediate control of your health information.

One of the new changes is that all lab results will be published on the portal as soon as the lab has completed their process. Previously, only normal results were immediately published. Tests containing abnormal results were not published until your healthcare provider had verified the results. This change could very well lead to you learning of an abnormal test result before your provider. We encourage you discuss with your provider how follow-up discussions should occur—whether you should immediately send a portal message or whether to wait a reasonable amount of time for your provider to contact you.

Also, there may be test results that you would prefer not to be released to the portal until your provider has had the opportunity to review. Your provider does have the opportunity to restrict release of such tests on a case-by-case basis, as long as he/she knows your wishes ahead of time. The new rules, however, only allow such restrictions on a test-by-test basis. We are not permitted to simply prevent all tests from being released on a given person should he/she not want this feature.

Other new automatic releases of health information coming soon: radiology results and certain clinical notes.

Our intention is never to provide information that is confusing, but as with many medical tests, "normal" vs "abnormal" or "out of range" markers, are often based on general population statistics and may or may not apply to you specifically.

As your healthcare provider, we believe you having access to your information in real time is best. But if you have immediate questions about that information, please reach out to us.

Thank you for being a valued portal participant.
Think Holzer First!

Rodney Stout, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Holzer Health System

View/Download a PDF of the Update