@karen1945 I also like the patient portal to send messages because then what I want to say to the doctor gets to the doctor in my words, not interpreted by a nurse who answered the phone. Also, for me it works well because I have a hearing impairment and it's much easier to communicate in writing than on the phone.
JK

Hi Karen, I'm not surprised by that - portal messages & responses are some of the statistics that can be monitored by management to determine how responsive the personnel are to patient requests. Unless they have a sophisticated system, phone messages are not necessarily input into the portal, and become random slips of paper floating around. Until the latest software upgrade, my practitioner literally had to log onto 3 different systems to collect all the messages - the main portal, the phone message system and the separate e-mail message system. No wonder things can "slip through the cracks." In addition, with staffing issues, not every primary provider has an individual employee monitoring just for them - often it is a pool arrangement with 3-4 providers sharing a group of nurses and aides.
Sue