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MiCare: bridging the gap between patients and providers

  • Published
  • By Capt. Louis Edwards
  • 15th Medical Group
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii --  The 15th Medical Group has been using MiCare, the military's online confidential secure messaging service, for nearly a year and patients are responding positively.

In fact, 15th MDG patients are sending messages to their health care team at a higher rate than any other medical facility in the Pacific.

MiCare has been shown to significantly reduce the number of phone calls between patients and providers, increase patient satisfaction, and save time for the medical office staff and the patient so the clinic aims to continue to enroll as many patients as possible into MiCare. Secure messaging has become a primary form of communication between patients and their healthcare teams.

So why sign up for Micare? In MiCare, patients can request appointments with their healthcare providers, get test results, request prescription refills or ask their healthcare team non-urgent medical questions via a secure electronic message that bypasses phone-trees, voicemail and having to play phone tag. The goal for the clinic is to respond to each patient message as quickly as possible. Messages are flagged for immediate response if not answered within 72 hours.

If you have not already registered, sign up for MiCare today and find out the ease and effectiveness of the system that so many others have already discovered.

To register, visit the 15th MDG to initiate the face-to-face registration process at any clinic front desk. Patients will need to show their military identification card and provide basic information such as name, social security number, birthday and email address. An email will be sent to finish enrollment and confidential messaging may begin. As a note, patients should check their junk mail box as well; the invite email may be filtered there by the email provider.

MiCare has been designed to support patients and healthcare teams and is fully implemented Air Force- wide. Once registered, a patient will remain in the system no matter where the Air Force takes them.

For more information visit www.airforcemedicine.af.mil/micare/.