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An access code is a 4-word code that you provide your patient. It is one of the ways in which you can give them access to forms or medical records. Access Codes are only needed once. Once they are used, they can be discarded. The information that they unlock will remain unlocked and accessible via the specific Patient Portal account where the codes were entered. There are 2 kinds of access codes you could provide your patients: SmartForm Access Codes, and Medical Records Access Codes.
A SmartForm Access Code is a code that is automatically provided to your client when needed. You do not need to generate this code or send it to your client manually. Its purpose is to ensure that the right client gets the right form. The code is only needed once, and then it can be discarded. Here are the situations in which an access code will be provided to your patient.
The purpose of the Access Code in the above situations is provide patients the ability to load the form you assigned them into any patient portal account they might have. Since we do not know if they already have a Patient Portal account, we provide them a code to enter into whatever account they have or they created. Once they enter the code, the SmartForm will be linked to that Patient Portal account.
Here are some situations where we do not need to send an Access Code for SmartForms:
In the above two situations, we do not need to provide a SmartForm Access Code because both online booking and the guest link require the patient to be logged into a Patient Portal account already. This means that we already know to which account to connect the SmartForm. So a SmartForm Access Code is not needed, and not provided.
For the SmartForm Access Code, as mentioned above, you do not need to do anything for this to work. The codes are sent automatically to the patient whenever they are in a situation where a code is required.
Note as well that SmartForm Access Codes only provide access to SmartForms, and nothing else. A Patient cannot get access to treatment plans, shared documents, appointments, etc. for that, they need a Medical Records Access Code.
Medical Records Access Codes unlock access to treatment plans, shared documents, patient to practitioner messaging, appointment schedules, etc. Essentially, anything that is sensitive medical or private information can be unlocked using a Medical Records Access Code. This is why it is very important to be as careful as possible with providing these codes to your patients. Ensure that they understand how the code works, and how to use it.
A Medical Records Access Code should only be provided when face to face with a patient. However, we do offer the ability to send a code via e-mail, although we do caution that you follow-up with your patient when using e-mail as a delivery method for the code. But in call cases, this is a completely manual process, and there is no way to have these codes send automatically, for security reasons. Additionally, the Medical Records Access Codes expire in 5 days. If they are not redeemed in that period of time, the codes will no longer be valid, and your client will have to contact you to get a new code.
You can learn how to give Medical Records access codes to your clients here.
For security reasons, is it strongly advised that you instruct your patients to redeem their access codes as soon as they get them. Leaving an access code lying around can potentially give an unauthorized person access to your patient’s information. If your patient loses their access code, you are able cancel it and issue them a new access code.
Although we try to make the Access Code process as easy as possible, there are some restrictions we have put in place to help keep sensitive information private.