Almost every practice has a portal and most portals are barely used, which tells you the feature list is not the problem. What decides use is friction at sign-up, whether there is anything worth signing in for, and whether the things patients most want to do can be done without an account at all. Score those three and the shortlist looks very different from a comparison of portal feature grids.
Portal and patient-access products commonly shortlisted, and the sign-up test for each
Not a ranking. Siftvo publishes no score of its own and no vendor pays to be named here. The order is alphabetical and the line after each name is the thing to make that vendor show you in a demo, scored on your own sheet.
- Klara: messaging-led patient communication: count the steps to a first reply from a cold text message
- NexHealth: booking and forms over an existing record: ask what a patient can do with no account and where it lands
- Practice Fusion: portal bundled with a record at a published price: enrol on a phone and count the steps
- athenahealth: portal bundled with a network record: ask for the monthly login rate at practices of your size
Measure the sign-up, on a phone, cold
Ask the vendor to enrol you as a new patient on a phone, from the message a patient would actually receive, without help. Count the steps and note every place a code, a link or a birthdate is needed. Most portals lose the majority of patients in that flow, and the number of steps is the single best predictor of the activation rate you will get. It is also directly comparable between vendors, which very little else is.
What is behind the login has to be worth it
Results with an explanation rather than a raw value, the ability to message and get an answer, booking that shows real availability, a bill that can be paid, and forms that can be completed before arriving. A portal that only shows a visit summary gives a patient no reason to return. Ask what proportion of a comparable practice's patients log in monthly, and treat a vendor that will not answer as having answered.
The best portal features need no portal
Booking a slot, completing a form and paying a bill can all be done from a link with no account, and that is what most patients will do. Ask which of those the product supports without a login and how the resulting data lands in the record. The strongest answer here often comes from a booking and forms layer rather than from the record vendor's own portal, which is worth knowing before you compare only the latter.
Questions people ask about best patient portal software
What activation rate should we expect?
Ask each vendor for the figure at practices of your size and specialty, and ask what counts as activated. The variation between products is large, and a vendor unwilling to discuss it is telling you something.
Should patients be able to book without an account?
For most practices yes, because the account is the barrier. Ask how an accountless booking lands in the schedule and what checks run before it does.
Do you rank patient portals?
No. We publish no ranking and no score of our own. Score the shortlist on your own sign-up test and your own weighting.