AlayaCare's Family Portal is a secure, HIPAA-compliant online portal for clients and their families to stay connected to care providers and engaged in the care planning process. This FAQ outlines answers to some of the most common questions that we receive from organizations that are considering implementing the Family Portal.
Can agencies choose which details are displayed in the Family Portal?
Yes. Your organization can control user access to different features and information within the Family Portal by using roles and permissions.
When creating a new portal user, you will assign them one of the client portal roles defined by your organization in Settings > Roles and Permissions. For each role, you can choose to enable and disable different permissions related to functionality in the Family Portal.
For example, if your agency does not offer nursing services, you can choose to disable the permissions related to viewing medications and vitals for all portal roles so that these tabs and tiles will not be displayed in the portal. Similarly, if you don't want clients and families to be able to view employee names and bios or rate and review caregivers, you can turn off these permissions for all portal roles.
You can find a complete list of the permissions available to enable and disable for portal users here.
Can you set the minimum amount of time that the client can request a change in advance?
Yes, you can. When configuring the Family Portal, your organization can enter a minimum number of days in advance that portal users can request a new visit, new service, or change to an existing visit. For example, if you set the minimum number of days for requesting a new visit to 2 days, portal users will not be able to request a new visit less than 2 days in the future.
You can also set a maximum number of days in advance that portal users can request scheduling changes from the Family Portal. To learn how to configure these settings, click here.
When portal users request a visit change, service change, or new visit from the Family Portal, are schedulers able to control whether the request is granted?
Yes. Your organization is still responsible for making the change to the client's service or visit or scheduling the new visit from the AlayaCare web application and therefore has full control over whether the request is granted. When a new request is submitted for a client from the Family Portal, a new task will be created in the web application and the Family Portal Open Requests dashboard KPI will be updated with the new number of requests submitted through the portal that have not yet been completed. Clicking the KPI tile will open the Tasks tab filtered to requests submitted from the Family Portal. It is then up to your organization to decide whether the requested scheduling changes can be accommodated.
Can you configure the Family Portal to allow users to request some types of services but not others?
No, not exactly. The request new service option allows clients or their contacts to choose the dates of the service they would like to request and provide an explanation of the service they would like to receive. Since it is a free response field, they are not able to choose from a preconfigured list of services offered by your organization and approved for requesting through the portal. Once they submit the request, your organization can decide whether the request should be granted and how best to accommodate it.
Can you customize the formatting of the email notifications that are sent to portal users?
Following the March 2021 release of the new user management workflow for Family Portal, you can customize the email messages that are sent to portal users in scenarios such as when their account is first created or they need to reset their password. You can create custom templates for these emails from the Family Portal Email Templates tab under Settings. Click here to learn more.
Can you view interventions on visits on the past and whether they were completed? If an intervention was not completed, can you view the comment provided by the caregiver?
Portal users with the correct permissions can review interventions on the client's past as well as upcoming visits and check whether the interventions were completed during the visit. At the moment, it is not possible to view the comments provided by caregivers on interventions that could not be completed from the Family Portal; however, this is an improvement that the team is currently evaluating.
After a visit is approved, will the Family Portal continue to display the scheduled time of the visit, or will the approved time be displayed instead?
Currently, visit start and end times are updated in the Family Portal based on the approved time for a visit. For both approved and unapproved visits, only the scheduled start and end time of visits will be visible in the Family Portal.
Can organizations upload their own documents to the Family Portal?
It is not currently possible for organizations to upload documents to the Family Portal to share with clients and their contacts. However, you can allow portal users to review completed forms for clients. Any portal user in a role with the correct permission for viewing forms will be able to review forms that have been submitted and approved for a client whose profile they have access to.
Can organizations use the Family Portal to collect signatures on documents from clients and their family members?
While you cannot upload documents or share form drafts through the Family Portal for clients and their contacts to review and sign, you can collect information and signatures from clients and their contacts by creating Family Portal-type forms. Once published, these forms are available in the Family Portal for users to complete and can be designed to require a signature.
Using AlayaCare's form builder, you can easily create documents such as consent forms, self-assessments, and satisfaction surveys to distribute and collect responses to through the Family Portal. Once a portal user completes a form, your staff will be able to review it from the AlayaCare web application.
If an additional signature on a form completed in the Family Portal is required by a member of your staff (for example, if a nurse is required to sign off on an assessment), an employee with permission to edit submitted forms in AlayaCare would still be able to edit the form and add the required signature in a designated field before it is approved.
Can the Family Portal be configured to allow users to access some forms but not others?
Currently, you cannot choose which Family Portal-type forms a user is able to view and submit in the Family Portal. Any portal user with permission to complete forms will be able to access all Family Portal type forms. The team is currently working on improving this behaviour so that access to different Family Portal forms can be controlled by the roles selected on the form.
However, you can choose which regular forms completed by care providers can be viewed in the Family Portal after they are approved. When creating a new form of type regular in Settings>Form Settings, you can select which roles should be able to view the form in the field. As long as you do not select any client portal roles in this field, the form will not be visible in the Family Portal.
Keep in mind that if you do not specify which roles should be able to view a given form, all roles, including portal users with the correct permissions, will be able to view the form. However, portal users will only see completed forms once they have been approved.
Is it possible to allow portal users to only see invoices in a sent or paid status and not draft status?
Invoices only become visible in the Family Portal once you have finalized them and marked them as sent/confirmed. Once in a "post-send" status, invoices billed to client individual type funders can be accessed from the Family Portal. Draft invoices cannot be accessed through the Family Portal.
Will there be an option to pay invoices through the portal?
Yes. Our premium feature in North America called Payment Gateway makes it possible for portal users to make payments toward a client's invoices directly from the Family Portal. For more information refer to this section.
Is there a messaging or chat functionality in the Family Portal to allow caregivers and clients and their families to communicate directly?
A secure messaging feature for office staff and care providers to communicate through its web and mobile applications is now available. Please note that this is a premium feature. Our goal is to eventually expand the secure messaging functionality to allow clients and family members to communicate with agency staff. Please note that this feature is charged based on user count. Also, as of Spring 2024, our messaging offerings is decoupled from Family Portal and we will charge for Client Messaging on top of Secure Messaging + Family Portal.
For more information on this functionality, please contact us, or refer to this article for more information.
Are client care plans currently accessible through the Family Portal?
Client care plans in AlayaCare are not currently available to view in the Family Portal, but this is an improvement that is slated for development and will become available in the future. For now, the only care plan details that are displayed in the Family Portal will be the scheduled interventions on client visits.
Can you view progress notes from the Family Portal?
Progress notes are not currently available through the Family Portal, but this is an improvement that is slated for development and will become available in the future.
Is the Family Portal available in other languages?
The Family Portal is available in French as well as English. You can find articles in French about using the Family Portal here.
Is it possible for portal users to log in using SSO or fingerprint or face recognition?
No, not at this time. Once a client or client contact is granted access to a client's profile in the Family Portal, they are required to set up their own unique password to access the portal. They can reset this password at any time by using the forgot password option.
Do you offer any integrations with the Family Portal?
AlayaCare does not currently support any integrations between the Family Portal and other platforms.
However, users can opt in the payment gateway premium feature, which makes it possible through an integration with a third-party payment processing service for payments to be submitted. Organizations that wish to allow portal users to make payments through the Family Portal will also need to sign an agreement with AlayaCare's partner FrontStream. Refer to this article for more information.
What kind of device and web browser do you need to access the Family Portal?
The Family Portal can be accessed through a Chrome or Safari web browser on any laptop or desktop computer, iOS or Android tablet, or iOS or Android smartphone. The responsive design of the application allows it to adapt to the specifications of any of these devices.
How do clients and their contacts access the Family Portal? Is it link accessible, or will they need to download an application?
Your organization will have a unique web link where portal users can log into the Family Portal using a Chrome or Safari web browser. This link will generally be the URL for your organization's AlayaCare production environment followed by /familyportal.
How can I find more information about configuring and using the Family Portal?
You can learn about how to set up the Family Portal for your organization by reviewing the article in the Family Portal 2.0 (Agency) section in our knowledge base. You will find articles on topics such as:
- Configuring settings, logos, and permissions for the Family Portal.
- Granting clients and client contacts access to the Family Portal.
- Creating forms that can be completed by Family Portal users.
- Customizing email templates for email notifications sent to portal users.
To learn more about the experience of using the portal itself and the options available, check out the articles in the Family Portal 2.0 (portal users) section in our knowledge base. These articles will allow you to see how the features within the Family Portal work when accessing the portal from either a computer/tablet or smartphone.
How can find out more information about the cost of this premium feature?
The annual cost of AlayaCare's Family Portal feature will depend on the size of your organization. Please reach out to your Client Services Manager or Client Relationship Manager to request pricing information for the Family Portal.
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