Portal requests are forwarded multiple times before reaching an owner
Clarify ownership and the expected next handoff before creating more work.
Portal workflow
Epic Portal Request Routing: Front Desk and Pool Ownership
Operational guidance for deciding where portal requests should go, who owns them and how front-desk teams can avoid duplicate or hidden work.
What this often looks like
Common symptoms
Front desk duplicates a request to make sure someone sees it
Clarify ownership and the expected next handoff before creating more work.
Different request types are mixed into the same pool
Clarify ownership and the expected next handoff before creating more work.
Staff are unsure which requests they can resolve versus escalate
Clarify ownership and the expected next handoff before creating more work.
First checks
Work through these before escalating blindly.
- Classify the request before routing it
- Confirm the approved destination by request type
- Identify who owns acknowledgement and follow-up
- Document the front-desk stop rule for requests outside its scope
- Use one route rather than sending the same request to multiple teams
Ownership questions
- Which portal requests belong to front desk?
- Which belong to clinical, billing, records or referral teams?
- Who owns unclassified requests?
- How are aging requests escalated?
Avoid making the problem worse
Do not use a workaround as the default process.
- Sending the same request to multiple pools
- Using HelpEpic for patient-specific medical questions
- Copying patient messages into outside tools
- Creating local routing rules that conflict with organization policy
Security and privacy boundary. Do not send HelpEpic patient names, DOBs, MRNs, insurance identifiers, screenshots, records, passwords, tokens or other confidential information. Access, outages, security incidents, protected configuration changes and patient-specific clinical decisions belong with your organization’s authorized teams.
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