Creating a Patient Online Services account helped teen respond to COVID-19 infection
4/12/2022
Nore Al Jumaili started coughing and had a fever. A family member had recently been diagnosed with COVID-19 and had begun home quarantine. So the 14-year-old's mom took her to Mayo Clinic for a COVID-19 test.
When she was there, Nore was told she could find her test results on Patient Online Services.
But Nore hadn't created her own Patient Online Services account. Until Nore was 13, her mom had full access to her health records through Patient Online Services. At 13, parental access is limited, so Nore's mom could see her daughter's allergy and immunization lists, secure messages, and Mayo Clinic Express Care Online visits, but she couldn't review any of Nore's test results.
Nore decided it was time to create her own account.
"A friend of mine told me that I could call Mayo Clinic and ask them to create an account for me," she says. "She told me my mom or dad would need to be there when I called. That seemed easy enough, so I called."
Nore spoke with an agent who she says made it easy for her and her mom to set up an account.
The account was created quickly, and Nore was able to check her test results. Unfortunately, she had tested positive and needed to quarantine, but she says her symptoms were pretty mild and she's doing great now, as is her family member.
How to create a Patient Online Services account for a teenager
Any Mayo Clinic patient 13 to 17 years of age can create a Patient Online Services account.
Here's how:
- Make sure both the teenager and the parent or guardian are present for the call. It's good to have the teenager's Mayo Clinic number available. The teenager also needs to have an email address to receive emails from Mayo as part of the account creation process.
- Call Mayo Clinic Customer Assistance at 877-858-0398.
- Select option "5."
- Tell the agent that you want to create an account for a teenager.
- Both parent and teen will answer questions from the agent to validate who they are. Questions can include such things as the Mayo Clinic number, name of their health care professional, birth date or full address.
- Emails are sent with links to finish creating the account.
- Agents will help complete the process, including logging in to the newly created account.
It's important that teens can answer the agent's questions without any prompting.
Revised process during pandemic
"Nore was able to create her own account over the phone after we adjusted our process during the early COVID-19 response. We found a remote solution for teen patients at a time when patients and parents may have been unable to be on-site," explains a Mayo Clinic compliance officer.
Prior to this, teens and their parent or guardian needed to go to Mayo Clinic to create this account. Due to the success of the process, and feedback from our teen patients and their parents, we will continue this process to allow creation of accounts by phone.
Nore created her account because she needed to get her test results. But she and other teens also need their own accounts for video appointments, online scheduling of appointments, other test results, and full access to their electronic health record.
The staff in Primary Care in Rochester and Kasson can help teens create their own Patient Online Services accounts. As Nore says, "It's easy."