The enhanced Physician Notifications feature enables physicians and their designated staff to receive email and text message alerts for the following types of patient event notifications:
- Admission
- Discharge
- Emergency Room
- Observation
- Results (All)
- Results (Post Discharge)
Note: You can set up email and text alerts only for the notification types that are enabled for your portal.
Users can receive alerts individually or batched by notification type and you can customize the delivery schedule to meet user needs.
See Manage Notifications for Help on notification management, which is accessed from the portal My Account menu. After you link physicians to a user, the user can complete the setup or update alerts information as needed from the Manage Notifications page.
Physician Notifications Help
- Video Tutorial: Physician Notifications
- Access Physician Notification Admin
- Link Physicians to User
- Unlink Physicians From User
- User Notification Information
- User Notification Delivery Options
- User Notification Delivery Schedule - Every Day
- User Notification Delivery Schedule - Specified Days
- Notification Delivery Mode Descriptions
- User Management of Notifications
Access Physician Notification Admin
From the menu bar, select Practice Mgt > Physician Notification Admin. The Physician Notifications page is displayed.
Link Physicians to User
Complete the following steps to link physicians to a portal user so that the user can receive alerts:
- Make a selection from the Practice list.
- Make a selection from the User list. Available physicians who have zero (0) linked users are displayed by default.
- Optionally, select the check box above the Available Physicians list to also display physicians who are already linked to a user.
- From the Available Physicians list, select physicians to link to the user. You can use the filters to help find physicians in the list.
- Select the right arrow in the center of the page to link the physicians to the user. This enables the user to receive alerts for the physicians.
- Select Save to save your changes. (Note: Reset removes any unsaved changes on the page.)
- If the user is responsible for completing the alerts setup, notify the user that physicians are now linked to the user’s account. The user must access the Manage Notifications page (My Account > Manage Notifications) to complete the setup. If you are completing the setup on behalf of the user, see the User Notification Information, User Notification Delivery Options, and User Notification Delivery Schedule (Every Day or Specified Days) sections of this page for instructions. Alerts are delivered only after the setup is complete.
Unlink Physicians From User
Complete the following steps to unlink physicians from a user and stop delivery of the associated alerts to that user:
- From the Practice list, select the practice.
- From the User list, select the user.
- From the Physicians Linked To User list, select physicians.
- Select the left arrow in the center of the page to unlink the physicians from the user.
- Select Save to save your changes. (Note: Reset removes any unsaved changes on the page.)
User Notification Information
Complete the following steps to provide user contact information for email and text message alerts:
- Expand User Notification Information to display user contact details.
- Select Use My Profile to use contact information from the user’s portal account profile and update the user’s account profile with any changes you save. Alternatively, select Use Alternate Profile to use contact information that is not saved to the user’s account profile.
- Enter contact information as needed for the user to receive alerts through email, text message, or both.
- Select Save to save your changes. (Note: Reset removes any unsaved changes on the page.)
User Notification Delivery Options
Complete the following steps to select the user’s email and text message alert preferences for patient event notifications:
- Expand User Notification Delivery Options to display event notification types for which the user can receive email and text message alerts. Only the notification types that are enabled for your portal and for which the user is authorized are displayed.
- Select one or more check boxes to indicate the user’s email and text message alert preferences.
Note: The Results (All) notification type is intended only for very low volume practices that do not regularly access the portal. The Results (All) notification type is meant as a prompt to inform users that a result arrived and is available for viewing.
- Select Save to save your changes. If the Save button is unavailable, or a confirmation message is not displayed after you select Save, check under User Notification Information for required information that is missing. (Note: Reset removes any unsaved changes on the page.)
User Notification Delivery Schedule - Every Day
The default notification delivery schedule is individual alerts all day every day. You can select a different schedule. This section has steps to create a schedule that is the same every day. See User Notification Delivery Schedule - Specified Days for steps to create a schedule that varies by day of the week.
Note: The schedule that is displayed when you select Save is the schedule that is saved.
Complete the following steps to create a notification delivery schedule that is the same seven days a week:
- Expand User Notification Delivery Schedule to create a notification delivery schedule for alerts on behalf of a user.
- Select the Every Day schedule option for a delivery schedule that is the same every day.
- Make a selection from the Notification Delivery Mode list. See Notification Delivery Mode Descriptions for more information on each delivery mode. Note: The delivery mode that you select applies to all of the notification types that the user is subscribed to (under User Notification Delivery Options).
- If you selected Individual Alerts – Specified Times from the Notification Delivery Mode list, go to Step 5. If you selected Batch Alerts from the Notification Delivery Mode list, make selections from the Delivery Times list to specify alert delivery timing (at least one delivery time is required), and then got to Step 6; otherwise, go to Step 6.
- For Individual Alerts – Specified Times, select start and end times to specify the time periods for alert delivery. At least one time period is required. To add more than one time period, select the plus sign (+). Note: To remove a time period, select the plus sign (+), then select X for that time period.
- Select Save to save your changes. The schedule that is displayed when you select Save is the schedule that is saved. (Note: Reset removes any unsaved changes on the page.)
User Notification Delivery Schedule - Specified Days
The default notification delivery schedule is individual alerts all day every day. You can select a different schedule. This section has steps to create a schedule that varies by day of the week. See User Notification Delivery Schedule - Every Day for steps to create a schedule that is the same every day.
Note: The schedule that is displayed when you select Save is the schedule that is saved.
Complete the following steps to create a notification delivery schedule that varies by day of the week:
- Expand User Notification Delivery Schedule to create a notification delivery schedule for alerts on behalf of a user.
- Select the Specified Days schedule option for a delivery schedule that varies by day of the week.
- For a day of the week, make a selection from the Notification Delivery Mode list. See Notification Delivery Mode Descriptions for more information on each delivery mode. Note: The delivery mode that you select applies to all of the notification types that the user is subscribed to (under User Notification Delivery Options).
- If you selected Individual Alerts – Specified Times from the Notification Delivery Mode list, go to Step 5. If you selected Batch Alerts from the Notification Delivery Mode list, make selections from the Delivery Times list to specify alert delivery timing (at least one delivery time is required), and then go to Step 6; otherwise, go to Step 6.
- For Individual Alerts – Specified Times, select start and end times to specify the time periods for alert delivery. At least one time period is required. To add more than one time period, select the plus sign (+). Note: To remove a time period, select the plus sign (+), then select X for that time period.
- Repeat Steps 3 through 5 for each day of the week as needed.
- Select Save to save your changes. The schedule that is displayed when you select Save is the schedule that is saved. (Note: Reset removes and unsaved changes on the page.)
Notification Delivery Mode Descriptions
- No Alerts: No Alerts means that alerts are not delivered to the user.
- Batch Alerts: Batch Alerts reduce the number of alerts the user receives and are by Notification Type. For example, an alert for Patient Emergency Batch Notification indicates that one or more of the physician's patients had an emergency room visit. You must select delivery times for batch alerts.
- Individual Alerts - All Day: For Individual Alerts - All Day, the delivery window is 24 hours a day. This is the default delivery mode.
- Individual Alerts - Specified Times: For Individual Alerts - Specified Times, you must select specific periods of time in hours for individual alerts delivery.
Back to User Notification Delivery Schedule - Every Day
Back to User Notification Delivery Schedule - Specified Days
User Management of Notifications
After you link physicians to users, the users can complete the setup or update alerts information as needed from the Manage Notifications page, which is accessed from the My Account menu. See Manage Notifications for more information.