The Effects of Doctor-Patient Portal Use on Health Care Utilization Rates and Cost Savings

Abstract

Using a unique longitudinal dataset, we exploit within-patient variations in the timing of activation and subsequent use of the patient portal. Active portal use is motived by a significant uptick in office visits and phone encounters. This is followed by a drop back to pre-portal use, as portal use substitutes for the increase in office visits and telephone encounters. Portal use reduces office visits and telephone encounters by 14-percent and 19-percent per year, respectively, over a three year period. Total cost savings are estimated to be $89.73 per patient for a three year period, net of operating expenses and patients and doctors opportunity costs. This results in total cost savings for $171,473 for a little over 2000 patients. Portal use enables physicians to manage a larger panel of patients: an 11 percentage point increase in the percent of portal users allows a physician to see 26 more patients a year, after accounting for physicians’ time responding to patient inquires within their normal work load. The stability of the system given the free riding inherent in all but a small number of users paying for the service is also discussed.

Keywords: Doctor-Patient Portal Use; Health Care Utilization; Cost Savings

JEL Classification: I12, I18, I19