Patients aren’t using your portal?
You’ve invested in technology to improve engagement, but patients see little value, leaving your team handling endless calls and paperwork.
This creates a frustrating experience for everyone. The worst part is a disconnect in patient communication that undermines the very care you provide.
In fact, Vozo Blog reports that 49% of patients offered a portal see no personal benefit. This shows a huge gap between having a portal and having one that works.
But what if you could finally find a portal patients love? One that actually streamlines communication and boosts engagement for your practice.
In this article, I’ll guide you through my top picks for the best patient portal software. I’ll show you options that simplify workflows and improve care.
You’ll discover how to choose a system that reduces administrative tasks and enhances the patient experience from day one.
Let’s get started.
Quick Summary:
| # | Software | Rating | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | athenahealth → | Growing medical practices | |
| 2 | Epic → | Growing medical practices | |
| 3 | NextGen Healthcare → | Growing medical practices | |
| 4 | SimplePractice → | IT directors & practice managers | |
| 5 | Mend → | Practices battling no-shows |
1. athenahealth
Struggling with complex patient engagement and workflow issues?
athenahealth offers athenaOne, an AI-powered, all-in-one solution. This means your practice can tackle challenges related to clinical effectiveness, patient experience, and financial performance head-on.
This platform helps you modernize patient engagement without overcomplicating your daily operations. You can improve patient relationships with communication and care tools.
This helps simplify your care delivery.
athenaOne integrates Electronic Health Record (EHR), practice management, and patient engagement capabilities. It streamlines documentation and offers more complete records, allowing your team to collect what you’re owed faster and with less work.
Additionally, it’s built for specialty needs, offering workflows tailored to how clinicians think. For instance, customers have seen up to a 6% increase in collections and a similar decrease in overhead costs, enabling staff to focus more on patients. Plus, athenahealth provides customer support with training and resources to drive your success.
The result is a more efficient and patient-focused practice.
Key features:
- AI-powered athenaOne platform: Offers an all-in-one solution that integrates EHR, practice management, and patient engagement to improve overall practice performance.
- Tailorable EHR and Practice Management: Enables complete patient records and boosts efficiency in collections, helping your practice maximize revenue and reduce administrative work.
- Comprehensive Patient Engagement Tools: Provides communication and care tools designed to enhance patient relationships and keep you connected beyond the direct encounter.
Verdict: athenahealth’s athenaOne stands out as a strong contender for the best patient portal software, especially for growing medical practices. Its AI-powered, all-in-one platform boosts clinical effectiveness, patient experience, and financial performance, streamlining workflows and potentially increasing collections by 2-6%.
2. Epic
Struggling to simplify your patient engagement?
Epic offers a comprehensive solution to streamline your operations and enhance patient satisfaction. This means you can easily manage appointments and access vital health information.
Their platform is designed to connect healthcare organizations, allowing for a unified patient experience that boosts efficiency. This results in significant improvements.
So, how can you achieve this?
Epic helps you deliver better care by providing tools that connect patients, clinicians, and health systems. Their software empowers patients to manage their health proactively, reducing administrative burdens on your staff.
You’ll find Epic supports your entire patient journey, from initial contact to follow-up care, ensuring seamless communication and data flow across your practice. This includes robust security features for HIPAA compliance.
Additionally, Epic enables you to connect with patients on the go, facilitating secure messaging and access to health records anytime, anywhere. This comprehensive approach helps you reduce costs, improve outcomes, and enhance your overall patient experience.
Ultimately, elevate your patient care.
Key features:
- Comprehensive Connectivity: Links patients, clinicians, and health systems for streamlined communication and unified data access, enhancing operational efficiency for your practice.
- Proactive Patient Engagement: Empowers patients with tools for self-management, including appointment scheduling and secure messaging, significantly reducing administrative overhead for your staff.
- Secure Mobile Access: Provides convenient, secure access to health information and communication on the go, ensuring HIPAA compliance and improving patient satisfaction metrics.
Epic features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Epic stands out as a strong contender for the best patient portal software, particularly for growing medical practices focused on integration and patient engagement. Its robust features for connectivity, secure communication, and proactive patient management directly address the challenges of information overload and administrative burden, helping you improve patient retention and operational efficiency.
3. NextGen Healthcare
Struggling to modernize patient engagement?
NextGen Healthcare offers a comprehensive Closed Loop Patient & Practice Experience, empowering patients and streamlining workflows. This system focuses on integrating patient access, intake, visit, and ongoing health management.
Their solutions empower patients with real-time access, seamless communication, and easy appointment management, which directly addresses information overload and simplifies patient interactions. Your staff gains newly unlocked efficiency with digital forms.
Here’s how NextGen Healthcare can help.
NextGen Healthcare delivers an end-to-end solution, enhancing the patient journey from discovery and access to post-visit care coordination. Their platform includes patient access tools like self-scheduling and online reputation management.
Additionally, digital intake forms and secure text messaging for pre-appointment communication empower both patients and staff, ensuring compliance. For instance, their Ambient Assist uses AI to transform doctor-patient conversations into structured SOAP notes, saving providers up to 2.5 hours daily and alleviating administrative burdens. This comprehensive approach supports improved patient retention and operational efficiency.
You can also leverage real-time data and predictive insights from their analytics solutions to optimize revenue and streamline your workflows, ensuring compliance with evolving healthcare regulations.
It’s all about making healthcare better.
Key features:
- Patient Health Management: Offers a robust patient portal for real-time access to health information, secure communication, and easy appointment management.
- AI-Powered Documentation: NextGen Ambient Assist uses AI to automate SOAP note creation and provide coding suggestions, significantly reducing administrative burdens for providers.
- Integrated Practice Management: Optimizes financial performance, operations, and efficiency with features like AI-driven claims automation, billing, and scheduling.
NextGen Healthcare features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: NextGen Healthcare stands out as a strong contender for best patient portal software, especially for growing practices, by providing a comprehensive, integrated platform that addresses critical pain points like patient engagement, workflow efficiency, and compliance through its Closed Loop Patient & Practice Experience and AI-powered tools.
4. SimplePractice
Tired of patient portal software headaches?
SimplePractice offers intuitive tools to help your practice thrive, streamlining admin and improving client care. This means you can manage your practice effectively while focusing on what matters most: your clients.
Specifically, their HIPAA-compliant software helps you run your practice with peace of mind. This helps you navigate compliance challenges while modernizing patient engagement.
Ready to simplify your operations?
SimplePractice helps you streamline administrative tasks, allowing you to focus on delivering exceptional client care. This is achieved through features like integrated telehealth, robust template libraries, and helpful insurance tools.
You can also effortlessly manage your calendar, simplify billing, and run engaging in-person and virtual sessions. For psychiatrists, it includes ePrescribe for secure medication management. Additionally, you gain flexibility with customizable rate tables and treatment plans, ensuring the software adapts to your specific needs. The result is a more efficient and patient-centric practice.
Manage and grow your practice.
Key features:
- Integrated Telehealth & EHR: Conduct virtual sessions and manage electronic health records, ensuring HIPAA compliance and seamless client care.
- Streamlined Billing & Scheduling: Simplify payment collection, manage customizable rate tables, and efficiently schedule both in-person and virtual appointments.
- Secure Documentation & ePrescribe: Maintain secure medical information with robust template libraries and for psychiatrists, safely manage prescriptions electronically.
SimplePractice features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: SimplePractice stands out as a strong contender for the best patient portal software, offering features like integrated telehealth, streamlined billing, and secure documentation. Its focus on HIPAA compliance and customizable options directly addresses common pain points for IT directors and practice managers, ensuring smooth adoption and improved patient retention.
5. Mend
Struggling with patient no-shows and administrative overload?
Mend helps your practice tackle critical patient journey moments from scheduling to after-visit, significantly boosting access to care.
This means you can maximize billable hours and reduce revenue loss from missed appointments, ensuring your providers stay productive and your waitlist moves.
Improve your patient journey with AI.
Mend streamlines workflows with powerful automations, allowing 24/7 self-scheduling that syncs in real-time with your EHR, even when your office is closed.
You can also send automated reminders, collect forms, and deliver care instructions in eight languages, reducing the communication burden on your staff and expanding your reach. Plus, Mend’s AI assistant, Emma, manages scheduling and offers virtual visit technical support, freeing your team to focus on direct patient care. Mend guarantees an ROI, promising to credit you if it doesn’t pay for itself.
Effortless patient care is within reach.
Speaking of streamlining communication, my article on font management software covers how to maintain brand consistency in all your digital patient communications.
Key features:
- 24/7 patient self-scheduling allows clients to book appointments anytime, filling slots automatically and matching them with the right provider based on custom rules.
- Automated patient communications include appointment reminders, digital forms, and care instructions in eight languages, significantly reducing staff burden and phone tag.
- Friction-free virtual visits provide secure, one-click access for clients without requiring a patient portal login or app downloads, ensuring continuous care delivery.
Mend features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Mend truly shines as a best patient portal software by offering a comprehensive platform that directly tackles patient no-shows and administrative burdens. With reported 43% decrease in no-shows and a 30% increase in patient satisfaction, it ensures your team focuses on care, not paperwork.
6. Ensora Health
Tired of endless administrative tasks?
Ensora Health offers an all-in-one EHR and practice management solution, giving you precious time back. This means features like automated billing, simplified scheduling, and streamlined note-taking free you from paperwork.
You want to prioritize your clients, not administrative burdens. Ensora Mental Health addresses therapist burnout directly.
Ready for easier days?
Ensora Health simplifies documentation, scheduling, and billing securely. It provides intuitive tools for solo practitioners, scales effortlessly for growing teams, and offers robust security for large organizations.
With Ensora, you can automate insurance and payments to ensure you get paid on time with less administrative work. You’ll also benefit from smart scheduling and reminders that reduce no-shows through automated text, email, and phone reminders. Additionally, the platform provides customizable notes and forms via its Dynamic Form Builder, designed specifically for mental health workflows, ensuring compliance and efficiency across your practice.
Achieve harmonious practice operations.
Key features:
- Mental Health EHR: Manages every aspect of your mental health practice effortlessly, simplifying documentation, scheduling, and billing for smoother workflows.
- Automated Payments & Scheduling: Processes private pay and insurance claims, plus offers smart scheduling with automated reminders to reduce no-shows and ensure timely payments.
- Advanced Security & Compliance: HITRUST certified and HIPAA compliant, providing features like encryption, SSO, and MFA for secure, scalable operations for growing organizations.
Ensora Health features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Ensora Health is tailored for mental health practices of all sizes, streamlining operations with features like automated billing, customizable notes, and advanced security. This comprehensive platform makes it a strong contender for the best patient portal software, helping you enhance patient care and operational efficiency.
7. RXNT
Struggling with patient engagement and administrative burdens?
RXNT offers integrated patient portal capabilities within its cloud-based software, streamlining your workflow. This means you can improve patient care with features like custom charting and reports, alongside secure communication tools.
The result is a more efficient practice where you can focus on patient well-being, not paperwork. Here’s how RXNT helps simplify your operations.
You can expect to get paid faster with robust medical billing features, coupled with integrated scheduling and comprehensive revenue cycle management.
This means you can prescribe safely and securely from anywhere, improving patient safety and ensuring compliance with EPCS mandates. Additionally, the integrated patient portal lets your patients access their health information and manage appointments easily. Plus, with mobile apps available, over 55% of your patients will appreciate the convenience of managing appointments, prescriptions, and medical records directly from their phones, significantly boosting patient satisfaction and retention.
The result is a practice that is both efficient and patient-focused.
If you’re also managing medication inventory or looking into pharmacy operations, my article on best medical store software covers essential solutions.
Key features:
- Integrated Patient Portal: Enhances patient engagement through secure access to health information, online bill pay, and streamlined communication, reducing administrative calls.
- Medical Scheduling & Telehealth: Provides state-of-the-art scheduling with patient notifications and supports virtual appointments for increased accessibility and efficiency.
- Electronic Health Records (EHR) & Prescribing (eRx): Improves patient care with integrated eRx, custom charting, and secure prescribing from anywhere, ensuring EPCS compliance.
RXNT features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: For growing medical practices aiming to balance HIPAA compliance, boost user adoption, and optimize budgets, RXNT stands out as the best patient portal software. Its integrated EHR, practice management, and mobile app capabilities simplify workflows and enhance patient engagement, as evidenced by its recognition as a top 10 integrated PPMS & EHR system for 2025.
Conclusion
Time to elevate your patient care.
Choosing the right portal is challenging. You’re balancing complex EHR integrations, HIPAA compliance, and the need to modernize your practice without disrupting daily workflows.
Ipsos reports that 50% of healthcare portal users use them for appointment scheduling. This shows a clear demand for tools that simplify administrative tasks and improve patient access, freeing up your staff.
So, what’s my top pick?
From everything I’ve reviewed, athenahealth stands out. Its AI-powered, all-in-one platform directly tackles workflow complexity, improving both patient experience and financial performance.
I was particularly impressed that customers see up to a 6% increase in collections. When you implement the best patient portal software like this, you invest in true operational efficiency.
I strongly recommend you schedule a free demo of athenahealth to see how its integrated tools can transform your practice.
You’ll see a real impact fast.
