Could Your Online Patient Portal Be Driving Patients Away Without You Knowing

What if the very tool designed to make healthcare easier is quietly frustrating your patients?

Your online patient portal may look like a digital front door to your practice. Patients can check test results, message providers, request appointments, review clinical notes, and manage parts of their care without picking up the phone.

But there’s a catch: having a portal doesn’t automatically mean patients will want to use it.

And in today’s healthcare environment, that distinction matters more than ever.

Patients Want Digital Convenience—But Not Digital Friction

Digital healthcare is no longer a nice-to-have. According to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), 77% of people in the U.S. were offered online access to their health information in 2024, while 65% accessed their records.

That’s a major shift.

But here’s the more interesting part: 59% of people had multiple online medical records or patient portals in 2024. Patients may be juggling portals from their primary care provider, specialists, insurer, laboratory, pharmacy, and hospital.

Imagine needing a different username, password, workflow, and interface just to manage different pieces of your healthcare.

Convenience can quickly become confusion.

The Problem May Not Be Your Patients

When patients avoid an online patient portal, it’s tempting to assume they simply aren’t interested in digital healthcare.

But the reality is more complicated.

Research highlighted by the American Medical Association has identified several reasons patients skip portals, including preferring direct conversations with physicians, not seeing a need for the portal, internet access challenges, and privacy concerns.

In other words, low portal engagement isn’t necessarily a patient problem. It could be an experience problem.

A portal that requires too many clicks, buries important information, provides confusing notifications, or makes simple tasks feel complicated can create friction at exactly the moment patients expect convenience.

And frustrated patients don’t always complain.

Sometimes, they simply stop logging in.

So, What Makes Patients Abandon a Portal?

Start with the small things.

Can a patient easily find their test results?

Can they understand what those results mean?

Can they send a message without navigating through several unnecessary screens?

Can they request an appointment without feeling like they’re filling out a digital maze?

And perhaps most importantly: does the portal actually save them time?

These questions matter because U.S. hospitals have made significant progress in providing digital engagement capabilities. In 2024, 99% of hospitals enabled patients to view health information, 96% enabled downloading, and 92% offered secure messaging with providers.

The technology is increasingly available.

Now the challenge is making the experience worth using.

Turn the Portal into a Patient Experience, Not Just a Feature

The good news? Small improvements can make a big difference.

Healthcare organizations can start by:

Simplifying navigation: Put the most-used actions where patients can find them quickly.

Reducing unnecessary steps: If booking an appointment takes ten clicks, patients may decide calling is easier.

Making information understandable: Clinical language shouldn’t leave patients searching the internet for explanations.

Prioritizing mobile experiences: In 2024, 57% of individuals accessing online medical records used an app, up from 38% in 2020.

Encouraging patients to use it: ONC found that 87% of patients who were encouraged by their healthcare provider to use their portal accessed it, compared with 57% who weren’t encouraged.

That last point is particularly powerful.

Sometimes, patients don’t need another digital tool. They need someone to show them why the tool is useful.

The Question Healthcare Leaders Should Be Asking

Instead of asking, “Do our patients have access to a portal?” ask:

“What happens after they log in?”

That question changes everything.

A successful portal shouldn’t simply give patients access to information. It should help them accomplish something—faster, more clearly, and with less effort.

Because healthcare already comes with enough stress.

Patients shouldn’t have to fight their technology to get care.

Your online patient portal could be one of your strongest patient-engagement channels—or an invisible source of frustration. The difference often comes down to usability, communication, accessibility, and whether the digital experience genuinely puts patients first.

The future of digital healthcare isn’t simply about giving patients more technology.

It’s about giving them a better experience.

And sometimes, the biggest portal problem isn’t that patients aren’t logging in.

It’s that they logged in once—and didn’t like what they found.

Also read: How Online Patient Portals Improve Patient Engagement

Author - Ishani Mohanty

She is a certified research scholar with a Master's Degree in English Literature and Foreign Languages, specialized in American Literature; well trained with strong research skills, having a perfect grip on writing Anaphoras on social media. She is a strong, self dependent, and highly ambitious individual. She is eager to apply her skills and creativity for an engaging content.