AtlacareThe patient portal — where a patient signs in to see their appointments, invoices, forms and exercises — is available to patients aged 16 and over. This is deliberate, and it's why you may see portal access unavailable for a younger patient.
Why 16?
A portal login gives one person direct, private access to a patient's record. For a child, deciding who should hold that access — the young person, a parent, both, or neither — is a safeguarding and data-protection judgement, not something the software should assume. Rather than guess, Atlacare limits self-serve portal logins to patients who are 16 or over, and handles younger patients through you, the clinic.
You'll also see a related prompt during CSV import: if a patient's date of birth isn't mapped, we can't confirm they're old enough, so those patients can't be given portal access until a date of birth is added.
What about patients under 16?
You look after them exactly as you do now — you just deal with the family directly rather than through a portal login:
- They can still be booked in the normal way. The public booking page has no age limit, so a parent can book online, and you can add the appointment yourself.
- Reminders and confirmations still go to the contact email or phone number on the record — typically the parent's.
- Forms, invoices and letters are shared the way you'd share them with any family: in person, by email, or however your clinic prefers.
The only thing an under-16 doesn't get is a self-serve portal login.
Parent and guardian access is coming
We're building representative access so a parent or guardian can see their child's appointments, reminders, forms, invoices and exercises online — with the right safeguards, and without exposing clinical notes or the patient's private message thread by default. Until that ships, handle younger patients through the family as above.
In short
- Portal logins are for patients aged 16 and over.
- Under-16s are managed through the family — booking, reminders and sharing all still work.
- Make sure a date of birth is on the record, or portal access can't be offered.
- Parent/guardian access is on the way.