Sending & Receiving Provider Secure Messages

Patients can send messages only to providers who have a secure direct messaging account. These accounts are different from standard email addresses. You cannot send a secure message to an insecure email address. This section tells you how patients manage their secure messaging inbox.

Sending Secure Messages from the Inbox

  1. Log into the patient portal. For more information, go to Logging into the Patient Portal.
  2. Click Secure Messaging.
  3. Click Create New Message.
  4. Select a provider who has previously sent the patient a message from the To drop-down menu.
  5. Type an email Subject and message and then click Send.

    The message is sent to the provider. The provider can view the message in his or her provider portal. For more information on reading patient secure messages sent to providers, go to Reading and Managing Received Secure Messages.

  6. Click Sent Messages to view the message.
  7. To view the status of the secure message that was just sent, click Direct Status in the top navigation bar.

Reading & Managing Received Secure Messages

Unless a patient has opted out of receiving notifications, he or she will receive an email notification whenever a new secure message is available to read in the patient portal.

  1. Log into the patient portal. For more information, go to Logging into the Patient Portal.
  2. Click Secure Messaging.
    The number in parentheses in the Secure Messaging menu indicates the number of unread secure messages in the inbox.

    Secure messages are automatically deleted after 30 days.
  3. Click the subject of a message to open and read the message.
    Unread messages have bold message subjects.
  4. (Optional) Complete one of the following tasks:
    • Click Reply to reply to the secure message.
    • Click Disregard Message to discard the message. To view previously discarded messages, click Disregarded.

    To preserve audit integrity, secure messages cannot be deleted.