Get set up on your doctor’s portal
Get set up on your doctor’s portal once, and get in from then on with an email and a password.
The portal does not hold anything about you. Your doctor’s office holds it, in the records it has always kept. The app is a window you look in through.
Which is why the first time is slow. The office has to be satisfied that the person at the window is you. It is asked once.
Key points
- Get set up in one of three ways, one of them needing no documents at all
- Get in with an email, a password and a code by text
- Know the setting up is asked once, and never again
What to remember
- With no passport and no driver’s license, the front desk hands you an activation code, or mails one. A normal route, not a last resort.
- The proof is a one-off. After it, an email, a password and a six-digit code.
- The difficult ten minutes happens once. After that it is an email and a password, like everything else.
Try this
Photograph both sides of your insurance card and keep it in your phone. The member ID on the front is asked for far more often than people expect, and the numbers on the back are the ones you call with a question. If you are on Medicare, the number on that card is a Medicare Number rather than your Social Security number — which is exactly why it is safe to carry.
Practice: Get set up on your doctor’s portal. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.