Online medical services now available through MiCare

  • Published
  • 66th Medical Squadron
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  The Air Force Medical Service is ready to begin patient registrations for MiCare, the military's online confidential secure messaging service.

This system 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. The AFMS aims to enroll as many patients as possible into MiCare and utilize secure messaging as the primary form of communication between patients and their health care teams.

Patients currently enrolled in MiCare are already talking about the ease, accessibility and benefits of this Internet-based service.

One MiCare enrollee said, "It is always empowering to be able to communicate via the Internet about routine health issues - and can very well prevent visits to the clinic..."

Another enrolled patient said MiCare "will answer lots of questions and save so much time for both doctors and patients."

On MiCare, patients can request appointments with health care providers, get test results, request prescription refills or ask their health care team medical questions via a secure electronic message that bypasses phone trees, voicemail and phone tag. MiCare is currently set for secure messaging and will be adapted to include Personal Health Records at a later date.

To register, patients should visit their medical treatment facility to initiate the face-to-face registration process. Patients will need show their military identification card and provide basic information such as name, social security number, birthday and email address. An email will be sent for patients to finish enrollment and confidential messages may begin.

MiCare has been designed to support patients and health care teams and will be implemented Air Force-wide, so once registered, a patient will remain in the system no matter where the Air Force takes them.

For more information, visit www.afms.af.mil/micare or call 781-225-6789.