Patient Portal

A patient portal is a website where you can review components of your Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center (CCOC) medical records. Using an internet web browser or a smart phone, you can review many records associated with your health care.  This is a tool to help you better manage your health care.

For our patients who have visited our various clinics and offices, we provide the widely-used EZ Access portal.  CCOC has selected the HealtheLife Cerner portal as the presentation method for patients who have had an in-patient or surgical procedure at our Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center Hospital in Montrose.

What is the difference between the HealtheLife Cerner portal and EZ Access portals?

The HealtheLife Cerner portal provides records from your hospital visit at our Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center Hospital.

The EZ Access portal supports all your visits at our clinics around the region. In the EZ Access portal, you can:

• View your clinical visit summaries
• Send and receive messages with your care team
• Request most prescription refills
• Update your demographic or contact information
• Update your personal health history – including allergies, surgeries, and any new medical conditions. The portal will communicate these directly to your care team.

The HealtheLife Cerner portal does not support these features.

Crystal Clinic is excited to provide our patients with access to components of their medical records and health information in an online format.

As we progress through the year, we will continue to add additional medical record and health information components from outpatient clinic visits and outpatient surgical visits to the portal.

Things you can view on the portal include:

• Most lab results
• Clinical visit summaries
• Lists of allergies that you have provided to our staff
• Lists of medications we have prescribed and of any medications that you have notified us that you are taking

We will send periodic announcements to let you know when new features have been added.

When are my portal records updated?

The portal record is updated:

• When the patient is discharged. Your records will normally be available 24 hours after your discharge.
• When the patient’s visit is reviewed by our Health Information Management department to assign diagnoses, procedures, and other information based on the medical record documentation completed for that visit. (This is often referred to as abstracting and coding.)
• If the Crystal Clinic manually requests an update.

Can I have someone check my records for me?

Yes, you can have a trusted person check your records.

Once you have registered in the portal, you can designate a Representative. You can grant them as much or as little access as you desire. You can revoke that access at any time.

Who can see medical records in the patient portal?

Protecting the privacy of your medical information is very important to Crystal Clinic.

By enrolling yourself in the patient portal and setting up a User ID, password, and security question that only you know, you are in control of who can see your medical records through the portal.

With the use of the Representative function, you as the patient have the ability to designate access to some or all of your portal medical records based on YOUR assignment of the Representative’s access.  You control what components are seen by the representative, and have the ability to change that access at your convenience. 

Until you designate otherwise, only you can see your medical records in the patient portal.  In addition, you can also see the portal medical records of your minor dependent children and anyone for whom you have been designated as a Representative.

I have another doctor who is not part of the Crystal Clinic.  Can I give them access to the medical records in the patient portal?

The EZ Access clinical portal gives you the ability to print your personal health record.  You can give that to your physician.

Can I give my spouse or adult child access to my patient portal?

Yes, you may provide another party with access to your patient portal by designating them as a Representative.

Can a legal guardian have access to the patient’s chart?

Just as with the paper medical record, the legally appointed guardian of a patient may be designated as a representative for the patient’s medical records on their portal account if the scope of their guardianship permits access to medical information.

Once you have provided the required legal documents to Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center establishing your role as legal guardian, you can be set up as Representative to their portal account.

How do I get access to my child’s information?

As a minor child’s parent or legal guardian, you will have a sign-on for that child and full access to their records.  Minor children are those under the age of 18 in most cases.  For those with diagnosed cognitive disability, under age 21.

If you are using a shared email address, we will need to complete a special set-up process so that you may be designated as a Representative on their portal account.  Please let us know at the time you are enrolling your child in the portal so that we may start the process.

Please note that once a child turns 18 they are considered an adult (unless otherwise legally designated) in the state of Ohio.  After their 18^th birthday, they will need to re-authorize their personal Representatives who may access their medical information through the portal.  Similarly, the patient would need to sign their own authorizations to release protected health information when medical record copies are requests.

Who can access an emancipated minor’s medical records?

In accordance with state and federal law, the legally designated personal Representative of an emancipated minor may access the medical records of the emancipated minor IF they have been provided with that authority.

However, restriction to access of the emancipated minor’s medical records may be enforced if the healthcare provider determines that it is not in the best interest of the minor, such as in cases where there is actual or suspected domestic abuse.

State Law:  Ohio Revised Code §3798.01 Protected Health Information (Definitions)

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3798.01

Federal Law:  Section 164.524 – Access of individuals to protected health information

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-individuals/right-to-access/index.html

Clinical Questions

What should I do if I do not understand my health information?
Medical records and health information can be very complex – it is very important that you understand what the information about your health means!  If you have questions regarding your health information, please contact your physician or care provider.

Can I contact my physicians through the patient portal?

If you believe you are experiencing a medical emergency, do not attempt to use the portal to contact your physician.  Please call 911 or the clinic to get immediate contact with your physician.

However, for many common questions, you may use the secure messaging system in the EZ Access patient portal for clinic visits.

Can I request prescription refills through the patient portal?

In the near future, most prescription refills can be handled through the EZ Access clinical portal.  For now, please contact your physician’s office for renewals and refills as you would normally request refills.

Technical

How do I log in?

Enter your email address (Hospital/Medhost) or your user ID (Clinic/EZ Access) and password in the fields provided.  You will be asked to provide the answer to the “challenge” questions.  (You selected a password and challenge question answer during your initial portal registration.)

For detailed instructions regarding navigating around the portal, please see your patient handout or the portal help section on the Crystal Clinic website.

My patient portal account is locked out!  What do I do? 

As a security feature, if you fail to enter the correct password and user name three times in a row, the portal will block further access attempts for the next 15 minutes.  You may try to log in again after 15 minutes have passed.

Why lock you out?  This is a security feature to protect you from hacking attempts.  A hacker will often try to access online accounts (of any type) by entering a known user ID (also known as a sign on) and then guess at common passwords.  The lockout feature discourages those attempts.

I forgot my password!  What do I do?

You are not alone!  Forgetting a password is a very common problem

At the patient portal sign-on screen, www.crystalclinic.com/portal, click one of the Forgot Password links in the blue box at the left of your screen.  Follow the instructions on the forgotten password page of the portal.

The portal will send a message to your email account within a few minutes with a clickable link.  Click that link and follow the instruction to reset your password.

If you do not see the message within about ten minutes, check your spam or junk mail email folder.  Sometimes your email reader will incorrectly classify those messages and treat them as junk mail.