Got a question about the patient portal?

This team can help.

When it comes to helping callers use the My UKHealthCare patient portal, William Jones and his call center team go by one simple principle: “We don’t rush.”

“We might have a call that takes five minutes,” Jones said. “We might have a call that takes 50 minutes. The most important thing is that the customer feels secure and they know the answer completely. We take our time to do that.”

The patient portal

The portal allows returning patients to manage their own healthcare online.

Through the portal, patients can pay bills, email their healthcare team and see their medical records. The most popular features available through the portal include:

• Blood test results.
• History of appointments and hospital visits.
• Appointment reminders.
• Documents from a doctor’s visit (the patient’s “chart”).
• Imaging results, such as X-rays.
• Medication or prescription lists.

The call center team

Jones, a client services specialist, supervises three others who answer phone calls from people who need help using the portal. Callers can expect empathy and personal attention without a long wait time. On average, calls are answered within 18 seconds.

Many of the calls to the portal help team involve people who are using the portal for the first time and are not sure how to get started.

“It’s nothing for us to get a call from someone who was born in 1930 and they’re telling us, ‘I just got a new computer,’” Jones said. “Or it could be somebody born in 1990 who’s computer savvy but who is just clicking everything.”

Whatever the case, the portal team’s goal is to resolve the problem during the customer’s first call – no matter how long it takes. In February 2018, 96 percent of problems were resolved during patients’ first calls.

The longest call the team has fielded lasted an hour and 40 minutes, but the length of the call doesn’t matter.

The team members know that patience is key because a caller might be having severe health problems or might be using a language-translation service.

Calls close to home

What’s most important is the end result. “They know the ins and outs of the portal. They’re very happy,” Jones said.

The portal support team typically fields 20 to 35 calls each day. Team members work from home.

Jones said it’s important that customers know they’re not getting a call service located overseas. Instead, they’re talking with people who use UK HealthCare and the portal themselves.

“We’re not just saying, ‘Get a portal account,’” Jones said. “We’re in there using the portal.”

You can reach the portal help team at 859-218-6221 or 844-820-7344 (toll free) on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

Next steps:

• If you have visited a UKHealthCare hospital or clinic, you should receive an email with instructions about signing up for the My UKHealthCare patient portal. Or, you can sign up for the My UKHealthCare patient portal here.