Penn State Patient Portal Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have some pertinent questions regarding the Penn State patient portal? Then you are at the right place. In this guide, you will get answers to some of the frequently asked questions regarding the Penn State patient online services.
Contents
What is My Health Patient Portal
My Penn State Health is a convenient, secure website that makes it easy to communicate with your physicians, pay bills, and make appointments. Learn how to sign up and use this service to manage your health care records.
How do I sign up for My Health?
You can enrol online:
- Step-by-step instructions
- Find your Medical Record Number (MRN)
- You can start the self-enroll process online here
- NOTE: Self-enrollment is only available for patients 14Â years or older.
- Parents and caregivers of younger patients should contact our Health Information Management team at 717-531-1697 to sign up for portal access (8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays).
You can also request an account when you are at a Penn State Medical Group office visit, or at the Admissions Desk in the main hospital, or in the Health Information Management office in the University Physicians Center.
If you registered during your office visit, you should receive an email “invitation” to join the health portal. The link in this email message will take you to your registration information. If you do not see the message in your email inbox, you may want to check the junk or spam folder to see if it is there.
If you have difficulty finding your registration email invitation, please call 877-621-8014 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can confirm that your email address is in the registration database.
How do I access My Health?
Go to pennstatehealth.org/myhealth. Please bookmark this page before clicking the login link to visit My Penn State Hershey Health in the future. There is a menu item on the pennstatehealth.org and pennstatehealth.org/childrens website homepages dedicated to Patient Portal. There is also a link to My Health in the footer on all pennstatehealth.org web pages.
Smartphone Apps Available: Simplify your access to My Health! Download a HealtheLife smartphone app:
Who can use My Health?
My Health can be used by patients of Penn State Medical Group practices, hospital inpatients, and Emergency Department patients. Patient access includes:
- patients over the age of 13 – patients age 14-17 may have their own account because of medical records privacy rights governed by Pennsylvania state law.
- parents of patients up to age 14 – consent from the child is required after their 14th birthday if they do not wish to have their own account, but provide the parents with access. See next question for details.
- parental access is terminated on the child’s 18th birthday per Federal HIPAA law. See next question for details.
- legal guardians with appropriate consent
Can I access my child’s medical records?
“Proxy Access” allows parents or legal guardians to access your child’s medical records until they reach the age of 14.
- On the child’s 14th birthday, access is automatically suspended. Your child will then need to visit the Medical Group office and provide their own email address to create a personal Portal account, or complete a Proxy Authorization Access Consent Form to re-enable access to their online records by parents or guardians.
- This expiration is related to your child’s age, not to any of the details on his or her record. Pennsylvania law affords medical records privacy rights to minors for certain medical record details. Examples of this include pregnancy, family planning counseling, selected types of behavioral health treatment, etc.
- Download Proxy Authorization Access Consent Form [en español]. Please complete the form and provide to the office staff at your next visit.
- On the child’s 18th birthday, parental or guardian access to online medical records will be terminated. The child will be able to initiate their own account for access to their electronic health record during their next office visit. Federal HIPAA law requires privacy of health records at age 18. Please advise your child to contact his/her physician’s office so that an account can be created that he/she can access directly.
- As always, parents and guardians can contact their family physician to discuss their child’s medical situation, and can contact Penn State Hershey Medical Records office to obtain paper copies of medical records by providing proper identification.
Can two adult patients (e.g. husband and wife) use the same email address for their My Health accounts?
Private access can be set up for only one adult patient at each e-mail address. Each adult patient must provide a unique and private email address.
Will my secure messages become part of my medical record?
Yes, messages sent and received via My Health automatically become part of your medical record.
Are all of my medical records now available via My Health?
As we expand use of our electronic medical record system to all of our outpatient practices, more of your records will be available to you electronically. If you have been an inpatient or Emergency Department patient at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, those records will be available to you online. Currently, My Health shows only selected parts of your medical record. Remember that your personal Penn State Hershey care providers can discuss any medical issues with you, including those not currently accessible in My Health.
Does My Health allow me to communicate with my care providers who are not practicing at Penn State Health?
Only care providers who are part of the Penn State Hershey system will be able to access secure messaging to communicate directly with you.
I had a test recently at a Penn State Health lab. Why are my test results not appearing on My Health?
We publish results for a majority of tests on My Health. However, a select few tests are considered by our physicians to be too sensitive or complex to be published without prior discussion between the physician and patient regarding the tests and their individual results. The decision to publish select tests was carefully considered by our medical staff. These tests are not published regardless of what the results might be, so there is no need to be concerned over your individual results simply because the test results are not available through My Health. The decision was based on which types of tests to publish, not which results.
Please contact your medical practice office directly to get the results of any lab tests which do not appear on My Health.
