The portal gives clients a private place to manage their care with your practice. Everything here is scoped to the signed-in client and audited. Staff turn it on and choose what it offers under Set up the client portal.
Signing in
Clients open your practice's portal link and enter the email address on their record. A six-digit code arrives by email, valid for 15 minutes; there is no password. The first time, staff send them in with Send documents, Email portal invitation, or a Grant portal access (copy link) link from their profile; see Set up the client portal. Text and email nudges from FrontDesk (a new secure message, a form to complete) link straight to the portal.
An email on more than one client record signs nobody in by itself, since FrontDesk can't tell whose portal to open; a staff invitation, which names the client, still works. The exception is a parent and the children they manage sharing one email: when the parent has portal access to every other client on that email, signing in with it opens the parent's portal, and they switch to each child there.
Home
- Next visit with the same actions as the Appointments tab: Join video visit when it is a video visit, Reschedule when moving is allowed, and a More menu with Add to calendar and Cancel visit.
- To do: forms and consents dated to the next visit ("3 things to finish before Thursday"), questionnaires to complete, a treatment plan or a release to sign. Finished items drop off.
- Book an appointment when nothing is scheduled.
Appointments
Upcoming visits show a status and actions; past visits fold away after three.
- Cancel opens a dialog with your policy. Inside the window it names the fee and how it will be collected, and the client ticks "I understand the fee" before confirming. Outside the window, no fee. Staff get a notification, the slot is offered to the waitlist, and the client gets a confirmation text. See Cancellation and no-show fees.
- Reschedule shows open times from your booking page's availability for the same provider, with the service's own Booking window on top, as Book an appointment does. Inside the window a late-change fee applies the same way, or the move can be blocked online. A visit whose service can't be booked online (its Earliest falls after its Latest) can't be moved online either: the client is asked to call.
- Book an appointment starts from the client's usual visit type and provider. It offers the times your booking page offers for that service, with the service's own Booking window (Settings → Services) on top, and its calendar opens on the first day that service can be booked and ends on the last. That first day counts your Minimum notice in hours, so with a few hours' notice it is today while some of today's times are still far enough ahead; Reschedule's calendar starts the same way. Both calendars count their days in your location's time zone, so a client in another time zone gets the same first and last day as everyone else, even near midnight. A service whose Earliest falls after its Latest can't be booked online: the client is asked to call. When your booking page's Policy acknowledgement checkbox is on and required (Online Booking → Booking Settings → Form), the client sees your wording with a box to tick, and the visit is booked only once it is ticked, as on the booking page. With a booking page in request mode it becomes a booking request for staff to confirm; in instant mode it books at once. Without a booking page the client sends preferred days and times of day, and staff pick the time. See Handle booking requests.
- After a move, the new visit takes the card and Home shows it as the next visit. The original stays in the list dimmed, reading "Moved to Thursday, September 10 at 1:00 PM." with no buttons; a cancelled visit says it was cancelled. A missed visit your team rebooks still reads No show.
Practices connected to athenahealth: cancels, moves, and bookings go to athena first and are labelled "via the client portal" there. A move keeps the same visit, which simply shows its new time. If athena refuses, nothing changes and the client is told to call. A client whose chart is not linked, or a practice whose connection is paused, sees athena visits read-only with "This visit is managed in the practice's scheduling system and can't be changed online right now. Please call the practice."
Messages
A secure thread with the practice. The client reads and replies in the portal, and can attach photos or PDFs (up to 5 files of 10 MB each). An unread count appears on the Messages tab and in the browser tab title the moment staff send something, whichever page the client is on, and their own messages show "Seen" once staff have read them. See Secure messaging.
Documents
- Needs you: forms to complete, a care plan to sign, releases to sign, each with a summary line.
- On file: the signed care plan, releases, completed forms, superbills, files staff shared, and Your record: a PDF copy of the chart, a data file (JSON), and Who your records were shared with with its own PDF. See Discharge and records release.
- Files and superbills each have View and, behind More, Download. View shows an image or a PDF in place; on a phone a PDF opens in its own tab. Download saves the file under its own name without leaving the page. A Word file has only Download. Only files staff marked visible appear; a private file cannot be reached even by link. If the page was open while staff shared a file, it refreshes when the client comes back to it.
Questionnaires (PHQ-9, GAD-7, PCL-5) open from the to-do list or a link; the client sees a thank-you, never the score. See Outcome measures.
Billing & Payments
Current balance with Pay balance, Invoices, Payment history, the card on file (add, replace, remove, with a consent line), and the client's payment plan with a Pay now button for the next installment. See Card on file and autopay and Set up a payment plan.
When the client has a payment plan, the balance card says how much of the balance the plan covers, and its button asks only for the rest ("Pay $40.00" instead of Pay balance), so the same money isn't collected twice. When the plan covers everything, there is no balance button. A plan payment still being processed shows as such, with nothing to pay until it goes through.
If an automatic charge to their card is declined, or their bank asks them to confirm it, the client is emailed (and texted where they allow it) a link to this tab to pay it.
My Profile
The client's contact details, which they can update themselves while Profile editing is allowed in the portal settings.
On a phone
The tabs become a bottom bar: Home, Visits, Messages, and More (Documents, Billing, Profile, Sign out). Dialogs close on Escape or a tap outside.