What a radiology patient portal is
A radiology patient portal is a web front door to an imaging exam. Think of everything that surrounds a scan: the appointment, the referral that sent the patient, and the results at the end. In most clinics those three things live on a phone line, a fax tray, and a report that goes back the same way it came. A portal is where they move online instead, so the people involved can see and act on the exam without calling to find out where it stands.
The word patient in the name points at one audience, but the same front door serves the referring office that sent the patient too. Both sides care about the same underlying facts: when the exam is booked, whether the referral has been scheduled and read, and where the results are. A portal built around imaging scheduling can face the patient, the referring doctor, or both. What it replaces is the same in every case, the phone tag and the fax that carry an exam today with no visible status attached.
What the phone-and-fax model actually costs
None of this needs an invented statistic to make the case. The costs are structural, not occasional:
- No status anyone can see. A fax has no state. Once it is sent, neither the patient nor the referring office can tell whether it arrived, whether anyone read it, or whether the exam was scheduled. The only way to find out is to call.
- Scheduling by callback. Booking a real slot over the phone needs both sides available at once, often across several calls, before a date is confirmed.
- Re-keyed orders. A fax is not structured data. Front desk staff read it and retype the same information into the clinic's own system, a step that adds nothing but a chance to introduce a typo.
- Results by chase. When the report goes back by fax, the referring office often calls days later asking where it is, because nothing told them it was ready.
What a portal changes
A working portal removes the fax and the callback, not by adding a screen on top of the same manual process, but by replacing the manual steps. The clearest way to see it is side by side.
| No portal (phone/fax) | Vendo portal | |
|---|---|---|
| Booking an exam | Phone tag across several calls to confirm a time | A real open slot booked online while the patient is still in the room |
| Referral status | No visible state; you call to ask | Status flips from referred to scheduled to read, visible without a call |
| Order into the system | Front desk retypes a fax by hand | The order lands on the imaging worklist as structured data |
| Where studies live | Wherever the vendor's cloud keeps them | The clinic's own PACS, self-hosted, under its own backups |
| Results | Faxed back, then chased by phone | Attached to the study and reachable through the same front door |
That is the direction a radiology patient portal points in: bring imaging scheduling and status online so the exam has a visible state everyone can act on, instead of a phone number they have to dial to learn anything.
Where Vendo fits
Vendo is the referral and booking portal in the MiniPACS platform. Referring doctors submit orders online and book real open slots instead of faxing and calling to confirm. Each order lands on the imaging worklist as structured data, and its status moves from referred to scheduled to read without anyone picking up the phone. That is the model Vendo is built around: the front door to an imaging exam, with scheduling and status online instead of on a phone line.
A patient-facing portal is the same category and the same direction, a web front door to booking, status, and results, and Vendo is the natural place for it to live because the underlying facts are already there. Rather than list specific patient-login features here, the honest thing is to point you at the working demo: open vendo.minipacs.net and see exactly what is live for your workflow. The positioning is the steady part, imaging scheduling and status online instead of phone tag; the exact screens are best confirmed by clicking through.
Self-hosted, so the imaging stays yours
A portal is a front door, not a new home for the studies. Vendo runs self-hosted on the same server as MiniPACS when the two are paired, which means the images and reports stay in the clinic's own PACS, under its own backups and audit log, with no per-study cloud fee and no dependence on a vendor to hand the archive back if the relationship ends. That is worth stating plainly for a patient portal specifically: you get the online front door to booking and results without moving ownership of the imaging off-site.
Pricing follows the same flat model as the rest of the platform. Vendo is $500 a month per location on its own, or $640 a month combined with MiniPACS, a 20 percent discount over buying the two separately, with unlimited referring doctors either way. Run together, referrals land straight on the MiniPACS worklist with no manual re-entry between the portal and the imaging system.
What to check before buying
- Real slots, not a request box. Confirm the portal shows actual open times and books them, rather than collecting a request that the front desk still has to schedule by phone.
- Status both sides can see. The point of a portal is visible state. Check that referred, scheduled, and read are surfaced without a phone call.
- Straight to the worklist. Ask whether an order through the portal appears on the imaging worklist directly, or needs a manual transfer between two products.
- Where the studies live. A portal should not quietly move your archive to someone else's cloud. Confirm the imaging stays in your own PACS.
For the receiving side of the handoff, see referral management software. For how imaging booking works as its own function, see radiology scheduling and patient self-scheduling. For how the archive underneath a portal actually works, see what is PACS, and see MiniPACS for the full pricing and how the two products fit together.
FAQ
What is a radiology patient portal?
A radiology patient portal is a web front door to an imaging exam. Instead of the appointment living only on a phone line and a fax, the portal is where the people involved in the exam can see and act on it: book or view the appointment, follow the status of the referral, and reach the results. Some portals face the patient directly, some face the referring office that sent the patient, and many do both. The common idea is the same: move imaging scheduling and status online so nobody has to call to find out what is happening.
Is a radiology patient portal the same as a referral portal?
They overlap. A referral portal is the front door for the referring doctor's office: submit the order, book a real slot, watch the status. A patient portal is the front door for the patient. Both sit on the same underlying facts, the appointment, the referral status, and the results, so a portal built around imaging scheduling can serve either audience or both. Vendo is built as the referral and booking portal in the MiniPACS platform, which is the model a patient-facing layer would extend rather than replace.
Does Vendo give patients a login today?
Vendo is the referral and booking portal in the MiniPACS platform: referring doctors submit orders online, book real open slots, and the order lands on the imaging worklist while the status flips from referred to scheduled to read. That is the shipped product. The patient-facing portal is the same category and direction, bringing imaging scheduling and status online instead of phone tag, and Vendo is the natural place for it to live. To see exactly what is live for your workflow, open the demo at vendo.minipacs.net rather than relying on a feature list.
Where do the images and results actually live?
In the clinic's own PACS. Vendo runs self-hosted alongside MiniPACS, so the studies stay on the practice's own server under its own backups and audit log, not on a third-party cloud that bills per study and holds the archive. A portal is the front door to booking and status; it does not move ownership of the imaging off-site. That matters for a patient portal, where you want the door to the results without handing the results themselves to a vendor.
How much does Vendo cost?
Vendo runs on its own at $500 a month flat per location with unlimited referring doctors, or $640 a month combined with MiniPACS, which is a 20 percent discount over buying the two separately. Run together, referrals land straight on the MiniPACS worklist with no manual re-entry between the portal and the imaging system. Pricing is flat, not per referral or per patient.