Community Care Physicians' New Patient Portal Connects Patients and Physicians While Fulfilling Meaningful Use

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LATHAM, NY (10/13/2010)(readMedia)-- Community Care Physicians has implemented a new patient portal, developed by RelayHealth, to provide patients with a new option for connecting with their doctor. This portal, called mycareDOT™, offers patients and physicians a wide array of services to facilitate health information exchange, including: lab results management, personal health record (PHR), requests for appointment scheduling and referrals, patient health education and electronic prescribing. What makes mycareDOT™ so unique is its online webVisits feature for patients to receive care for every day medical issues virtually, allowing unparalleled access to their doctors and health information.

Community Care Physicians is one of the first multi-specialty medical groups in the Capital Region to adopt the RelayHealth patient portal product and offer it to their patients. MVP Health Care has provided support of mycareDOT™ to help Community Care Physicians implement RelayHealth as part of MVP's initiative to improve health care quality by promoting primary care and the adoption of health information technology. In addition, MVP reimburses Community Care Physicians' providers for webVisits.

There are currently over 3,000 Community Care Physicians' patients communicating with 6 Community Care offices. Community Care Physicians plans to implement mycareDOT™ in 3 more practices by winter.

"mycareDOT™ allows confidential communication with our patients, helping our staff to manage patient requests more efficiently," said Dr. Raymond Carrelle of Latham Medical Group, who is one of the 34 physicians and non-physician providers in the Community Care Physicians multi-specialty medical group using the patient portal.

To enroll in mycareDOT™, an established patient would first visit the website www.mycaredot.com. After setting up a new user account, they then proceed through the set up wizard, where they are prompted to choose their primary care doctor with whom they will communicate. From there the patient updates their personal health record, including medical problems, medications, allergies, family and social history, and immunizations.

In mycareDOT™, before the patient can communicate with the doctor's office, the physician must first accept or decline the online relationship with the patient. Once accepted, the patient can send general messages to their doctor, request/cancel an appointment, request a prescription refill, or request a referral. All of these services are free of charge to the patient.

If the patient chooses, they can also take advantage of the next level of care in mycareDOT™, the webVisit. The webVisit technology allows patients to receive care quickly for issues that don't require an appointment. This is an easy, convenient and efficient way to exchange information with their doctor. From the comfort of their home, office or any location with Internet access, patients can complete a webVisit online evaluation of their non-urgent symptoms, such as sinus or back pain. The webVisit's step-by-step clinically structured interview captures detailed information to help their physician make an informed care decision.

The webVisit is the only element of mycareDOT™ with a cost associated. If a patient's insurance plan covers the webVisit service, and the plan requires a co-payment for a typical office visit, the patient will be required to pay a co-pay amount for the webVisit. If the patient's plan does not cover webVisits, there is a standard fee that will be communicated to the patient before they submit the webVisit.

The webVisits and other features of mycareDOT™ help patients conveniently deal with routine issues, while enabling physicians to utilize office visit time to treat patients with complex needs. The patient portal saves patients time as they no longer need to come in for an appointment or call the office and wait in a queue. The portal also ensures physicians receive more accurate information, improving patient outcomes.

"Adoption of the patient portal will improve physician and patient access to information," said Dr. Stephen Cohen, MVP Health Care corporate Vice President of Medical Affairs. "Physicians can make better use of their time. The RelayHealth product captures and organizes clinical and administrative information in a useful and useable manner so that all stakeholders can be confident the doctor has the right information to make decisions."

mycareDOT™ is an important part of Community Care Physicians' deployment of electronic health records to archive and access patient data. "Right now, we are working on integrating the patient portal with our Electronic Health Record (EHR), which we implemented company-wide five years ago. Once that is accomplished, patients' messages will show up directly in the physicians' task list of the EHR so they only have to access one system for all communications," said Dr. Barbara Morris, Pediatrician at Community Care Pediatrics-Saratoga and Chief Medical Officer of Community Care Physicians.

A key element of meaningful use of EHRs--and of health reform in general--is providing patients access to their own records.

"The release of the patient portal, mycareDOT™, is just another step in Community Care Physicians' impressive history of using technology to positively impact healthcare," says Morris. "It also positions Community Care Physicians to meet 'meaningful use' standards of electronic health records, helping our offices to fully participate in federal programs to reform healthcare."

About Community Care Physicians, P.C.

Community Care Physicians, P.C. is a multi-specialty medical group with over 35 practices. Spanning across Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady counties of the Capital Region, Community Care Physicians offers 20 different specialty services, including Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Pediatric Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, ImageCare Medical Imaging, Image Guided Radiation Therapy, Interventional Radiology, General Surgery, Urology, Physical Therapy, Urgent Care, Walk-In Care, Laboratory, Audiology, Dermatology, Diabetes Education and Nutrition, Occupational Medicine, Business Care, Wellness, and Aesthetic Laser. For more information visit www.communitycare.com.

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Contact Alexis Musto, Marketing Manager at Community Care Physicians, PC, for more information by phone at 518-213-0322, by email at amusto@communitycare.com, or by fax at 518-782-3798.