Prerequisite Reading: Creating a Questionnaire and Patient Portal
Building Forms for the Patient Portal
Any documents you want the patient to complete on your Patient Portal must be created as a Questionnaire in Cloud 9. Unlike other questionnaires completed by the Doctor or staff, this one is completed by the Patient (or Responsible Party) to provide necessary information for their future care. Typically, the Patient Health History form should be completed by the patient before their initial consultation, providing essential details like patient history, contact, and insurance information. The layout must be tailored for patient entry, with fields sized and configured for easy completion.
NOTE: Access to the Patient Portal is granted to a patient that is already in your system. They have contacted your office and been entered into Cloud 9, at which point they can receive a Patient Portal Invite. This IS NOT a mechanism for new patients to be able to complete the form prior to being entered into your Cloud 9.
In this article we will use a Health History Form as our example, but the same principles apply to any document that you want to create on the Patient Portal.
Setting up the Questionnaire Itself
Section 1, Questionnaire Foundations
Add the Questionnaire from Edit >Setup >Questionnaire, the same as any other questionnaire. The first of the differences can be noted in the screenshot below.
Name: Add the name of the Questionnaire
Number of Columns: Normally this is set to 1.
Show on Patient Portal: When this questionnaire has been completely finished and ready for the Patient's to be able to see this on the Portal, Check this box. This box should not be checked until that time, as every time you save it throughout the course of creating it, that portion of the questionnaire will become available to be seen on the Patient Portal.
Type: Patient must be the option selected for use on the Portal.
Section 2, Setup for Each Question
From the above screen, select the blue "+" to begin adding questions.
Type - Each option in the dropdown list of the Type field dictates how that field will look on the Patient Portal. Some of the options you can use are shown below as they would appear on the Patient Portal.
Header - Normally used to introduce a different section of the questionnaire.
Date Picker - Used only when you want a specific date to be selected.
Single Line Text Box - Used when you want a short answer.
Muti-Select List - Used when you want them to select multiple options form a list that you provide.
Notice that the box checked for the Measles option has the <<7>> shown behind it. That specific question has an added quantifier, as when the patient had measles may be significant. Below is where that is set up.
When completed, what you have done is assist the patient in drilling down into a basic answer to take care of the obvious follow-up question that you would've had to ask.
Single Select List - Used when you want them to make a single selection from the options that you have given them.
The same type of drilling down can be done when using a Single Select List, except in this case, you want ONLY ONE answer to your question. The question asks who the Primary point of contact should be. You are not asking for which three people should be contacted, you are limiting their choice to only one. The options on the list were Mother, Father, Grandmother, etc. But in case there was another option that you did not cover, the final option was Other, for which they are able to specify who that other would be by adding a quantifier to the question. This is shown below.
Category: The Category field is not mandatory. What options are available there are specific to your url.
Question: The Question field is where most of the work will be done for this questionnaire. In this application on the Patient Portal the Question is more of a statement. That is seen in the screenshots above when viewing the information from the Patient Portal, such as "Today's Date" and "Patient's Last Name".
Question Field - Because this questionnaire is being utilized differently from what you normally think of a questionnaire in an Orthodontic Practice, the question field does not necessarily have to be a question or framed in the manner of a normal question. Look at the example below. This question is in a Single Line Text Box. What you want to find out is the Patient's Street Address, so that gets entered into the question field. On the line immediately below that, you will want to add a number that corresponds to how wide you want the field to be for them to place their answer. In the example I selected 250. A number does not need to be added in the Height field, as this is a Single Line Text Box. That is only needed in a Text Narrative box.
This is how that field would appear when looking at it on the Patient Portal.
Answer Box Size - Each of the above boxes was set up with a width of 250. If the information is longer than that, the box's size will increase to accommodate the information.
Once some questions have been added to the Questionnaire, your setup page will begin to look something like this:
Wash, Rinse, Repeat
There is no maximum number of questions allowed on the Questionnaire. The process shown throughout this article will need to be repeated for every piece of information (question) you want the patient to complete. Remember to save your work often. When the questionnaire has been completed to your satisfaction, as a last step, check the "Show on Patient Portal" box at the top of the questionnaire. Then, using yourself or a test patient, invite yourself to the patient portal, and review the questionnaire to ensure it appears the way you expected it to. Uncheck the "Show on Patient Portal" box if you want to remove it from the portal.
Section Three, Patient Portal To-Do's
When information is entered on the questionnaire in the Patient Portal, there is no way for the office to know the form has been altered or completed without this To-Do action being set up. Select the white plus in the blue field to add a Patient Portal To-Do.
Begin by entering the Type (normally a selection of Reminder or Call Type are your options).
Then enter the Employee that you wish to receive the To-Do. In the third field, enter the text of the message the employee should receive. It should briefly explain what has happened to generate the to-do, and/or what they need to do with that information.
One possible option for the text message is this: New information has been added to the questionnaire on this patient's portal.
That would alert the employee that there are changes that need to be looked at. If new Insurance information has been added that information would have to be placed in the Insurance tab within the patient's chart. That Insurance information may need to be verified prior to the upcoming visit. Or a new allergy may have been added by the patient, which needs to be reflected in the chart.
Section 4, Documents
Any Documents that may need to be sent from the office that would require the information from this questionnaire would have to be entered in the Documents Section. Each Questionnaire must be linked to at least one Document in order to populate the information on that letter.
The Document will already need to have been created in order to show in the dropdown list to be selected. If you need information on how to add documents to the Document Editor, please read this article: Document Editor Introduction
Conclusion
Having the ability for the patient to complete their forms prior to coming into the office can be a huge improvement in efficiency. While the setting up of a questionnaire is a time-consuming process that requires great attention to detail, it should normally only need to be accomplished once but will be able to be used for years to come.
As always, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Cloud 9 Support by emailing us at cloud9support@planetdds.com, or chatting us online using the chat bubble on the lower right at https://cloud9support.planetdds.com/hc/en-us, or giving us a call during our business hours of 8:00 AM EST to 8:00 PM EST at the 1.800.394.6050 option 2.