What happens to your patient portal when you die?
As a Kentucky family found out, it disappears pretty quickly, WBKR reported.
A day or so after her husband, George, died, Connie Morgan, of Owensboro, Ky., tried to log into his MyChart account to resolve a medical billing issue — but it was already disabled, according to the April 4 story.
"If you pass away, there's no reason for your account to still exist," Fallon Henson, the director of health information management at Owensboro (Ky.) Health, told the news outlet. "Once a patient's status is updated to deceased, MyChart is then disabled. … That could happen almost immediately."
However, she added, a family member of a deceased patient can contact the health system to access their medical records via an authorization process.