Nearly 9 in 10 patients (89%) say it’s important to schedule appointments anytime using digital tools, and today’s students bring that expectation straight to campus. For campus leaders, this is more than a convenience trend. It’s now a core part of how students judge whether campus health services are accessible, trustworthy, and worth using.

Below are the top features and experiences today’s students expect from college health services. Plus, learn how clinics can deliver them without adding additional work.

1) Text reminders and mobile-friendly communication

Students live on their phones. If your campus health center still relies heavily on calls and voicemails, students may delay care or no-show, simply because the process feels cumbersome.

Text reminders help in two big ways:

• First, they reduce missed appointments by meeting students where they already are.
• Second, they lower the burden on your front desk staff because fewer students call in “just to confirm” or to cancel. This allows your staff to focus on the more important tasks at hand.

What this can look like in a higher-ed setting:

• Appointment reminders by text with clear instructions on how to confirm or cancel, i.e., reply with “1” to confirm or “2” to cancel
• Pre-visit forms available for health history, consent forms, and contact preferences
• Targeted outreach for time-sensitive needs (e.g., vaccine deadlines, lab follow-ups, referrals)

For college health clinics, text reminders can help drive attendance for immunization appointments, STI testing, follow-up visits, and vaccine clinic announcements.

2) Self-scheduling that actually works (and lives in a modern patient portal)

Students expect to book services the same way they book everything else: fast, online, and without waiting on hold. A modern patient portal is the centerpiece of that experience—especially when self-scheduling is baked in.

This is where many portals fall short: they technically exist, but they’re clunky, hard to find, or force students back into phone tag. When self-scheduling is easy and intuitive, it supports both access and clinic efficiency.

Here are a few high-impact self-scheduling features students value:

• Real-time booking (not “request an appointment and wait”)
• Clear visit types (e.g., “UTI symptoms,” “medication follow-up,” “same-day counseling consult”)
• Smart guardrails that route students to the right level of care (urgent vs. routine)

Operationally, self-scheduling can reduce inbound calls, shorten scheduling time, and make it easier to fill cancellations. That means campus health services can increase throughput without compromising the student experience.

3) “Less clicking, more caring”: automation that gives time back to staff

Let’s be honest — nobody wants to feel overlooked during their appointments. And college students absolutely notice when providers are rushed, distracted by screens, or spend half of the appointment furiously typing.

That’s why clinic leaders should care about what happens behind the scenes: technology that reduces manual work, so clinicians can be fully present.

Two examples that resonate with student priorities:

1. ICM Agent: fewer manual steps for immunization compliance

Immunization compliance is one of the most manual responsibilities for college health teams. When systems automate verification, flag noncompliance, and streamline follow-up, staff spend less time reviewing documents and more time helping students navigate next steps.

For schools juggling thousands of records, the ICM Agent offers the kind of automation that can be the difference between “deadline chaos” and a calm, trackable process.

–> Learn more about ICM Agent

2. Note Agent: More Face Time, Less Documentation Time

Students want to feel heard. Ambient listening tools can reduce documentation burden, helping providers maintain eye contact and build stronger rapport. In fact, research suggests eye contact is a big deal: 95.8% of patients reported feeling comfortable when clinicians used eye contact to strengthen the relationship.

Even small reductions in workflow friction matter. Note Agent’s clean interface and fewer clicks support faster charting and smoother appointments, which improves the student experience in a way they can actually feel.

–> Learn more about Note Agent

4) A seamless experience across medical, counseling, and wellness

A seamless experience is essential for providing a positive health experience to students on your campus. When campus services feel fragmented—different portals, separate forms, repeated intake questions—students can get confused and are more likely to disengage.

This is where integrated workflows can quietly improve care:

• Shared scheduling (so students land in the right place the first time)
• Coordinated referrals between medical, counseling, and wellness services
• Consistent communication and expectations across departments

For VPSAs and student affairs leaders, this is also a retention and student success issue. When access is simple, and care is coordinated, students get help earlier—before challenges escalate into academic disruption.

5) Digital convenience must come with trust and privacy

Even with online scheduling and messaging, students (and their parents) want reassurance that their information stays protected.

Any modern patient portal or messaging tool should be backed by clear privacy standards and role-based access. Additionally, it’s important to comply with healthcare and higher-ed requirements like HIPAA and FERPA.

A practical way to build trust is to communicate the “why” behind your workflows:

• Why certain visit types require screening questions
• Why are some appointment slots limited
• How privacy is protected across medical and counseling records

When students understand the process, they’re more likely to use it.

How to meet these expectations without burning out your team

You don’t have to rebuild everything at once. Many campuses see quick wins by prioritizing improvements that reduce friction for both students and staff:

• Turn on (or optimize) automated reminders for high no-show visit types
• Make self-scheduling the default for common appointment types

• Identify your biggest “click drains” and automate or simplify them (immunization review, repetitive documentation, intake routing)

P.S. As a Medicat customer, our support team can help with this!

Key Takeaways

Today’s students expect campus health services to feel as easy as the apps they use every day: text reminders, self-scheduling, and a modern patient portal are now baseline.

The most impactful upgrades also reduce staff workload. Moreover, through tools like Medicat’s ICM Agent and Note Agent, providers can spend more time connecting with students.

If you’re planning next steps, start with the friction points that affect both student access and staff time, then build toward a more seamless and trusted digital experience.

Want a more student-friendly health experience without adding clicks for staff? Schedule a demo with our team to explore our modern student portal experience, messaging tips, and documentation tools.

Immunization compliance can feel like a seasonal stress test—especially ahead of fall move-in. In a recent webinar, Ruth Patten, Director of Client Development, and Ann Wright, Director of Product, unpacked how Medicat’s new ICM Agent is designed to take a major chunk of manual verification off your plate.

Q1: What are the biggest pain points schools face related to immunization compliance management

Even with clear requirements and frequent outreach, many teams see the same issues every semester:

• Low student engagement: Students ignore messages or wait until the last minute.
• Incomplete submissions: Dates without documents (or documents without the required information like DOB and physician signature).
• Data-entry mistakes: Wrong dates or mismatched vaccines entered in the portal.
• Non-English records: Staff must request translations or rely on online language support.
• The summer time crunch: Reviews pile up; staffing fluctuates, and registration holds can start impacting students.

Q2: How manual is immunization verification today?

During our spring client survey, we uncovered that 93% of schools still do at least some manual verification /manual record entry.  Moreover, 30 of the schools we surveyed reported that more than half of their verification is done manually—a big signal that there are still ample opportunities for automation to make a big impact on compliance workflow.

Q3: What has Medicat already done to reduce manual work in immunization compliance?

We walked through several tools that many campuses already use:

1. Student portal data entry + upload to shift basic data entry away from staff
2. State immunization registry connections (automated push/pull—great when students were immunized in your state)
3. VeriVax integration to pull records across state lines when students were immunized elsewhere

However, even with these tools, a remaining slice of records (especially in international or non-state registry scenarios) still requires a human to compare documentation against what’s entered. This is why we’ve built the ICM Agent!

Q4: So… what is the ICM Agent?

ICM Agent is Medicat’s AI-powered tool that compares dates and details entered in the system to the dates/details shown on uploaded documentation. It then marks the appropriate immunization “facts” as verified (or leaves them unverified when sufficient documentation is missing).

The goal is simple: put more of the tedious comparison work onto the Agent’s plate while keeping a human in control in case any adjustments to compliance status need to be made.

This functionality builds on Medicat’s existing Immunization Compliance tools, including the student portal, state immunization registries, and streamlined document review.

Q5: How does ICM Agent help teams day-to-day?

There are four primary benefits to using the Medicat ICM Agent:

1. Less manual labor verifying immunization facts.
2. Faster processing across many files at once (instead of one-by-one review)
3. Human oversight stays in place (staff can see what AI did and override as needed)
4. Reduced risk of human error, like missed signatures or overlookeddetails

For campus health teams, the result is smoother, more efficient workflow without sacrificing accuracy or oversight.

Q6: How will staff know what was reviewed by AI or a human?

During our webinar, we shared a set of new icon statuses inside MedicatOne ICM:

Document icons (paper icons):

• Unprocessed (no human/AI has reviewed yet)
• Processed by human (verified by staff)
• Pending AI (queued for AI review)
• Processed by AI (AI reviewed and verified what it could)
• Failed (reserved for technical failures)

Fact icons (round dots):

• Unverified (no supporting documentation)
• Verified (trusted source like registry/VeriVaxor manually verified documentation)
• Verified by AI (the “favorite icon” moment—AI found proof in the document)

Q7: What happens if the AI can’t read a file?

In cases where a file can’t be fully processed, the system handles it in one of two ways:

• If the document is readable but contains no usable immunization data, the ICM Agent will mark the document as processed but will not verify any facts—mirroring how a human reviewer would handle the same situation.
• If the file is technically unreadable (for example, it can’t be opened), the document is flagged as failed, and staff can prompt the student to re-upload a valid file.

Q8: Can it handle waivers and lab results?

Support for waivers and lab results is part of the ICM Agent roadmap and will be introduced in future product phases. Each phase builds on the last to expand automation and reduce both student and staff workload.

Q9: Does ICM Agent store PHI?

Medicat’s ICM Agent does not persist PHI. The comparison happens “in memory,” and only the results are saved back into your Medicat system. Additionally, security documentation (HECVAT) is available upon request. Please email info@medicat.com for more information.

Q10: How do students learn what’s missing once ICM Agent reviews their submission?

This workflow can remain automated: when immunization fact statuses change, notifications can be sent to students directing them back to the portal, where the status of satisfied versus missing requirements is clearly displayed.

Pro tip: Teams can configure custom notifications to add more explicit instructions.

Q11: Is the ICM Agent expected to cause system delays?

No. The ICM Agent operates as a separate system on different servers than our EHR platform and does not interact directly with your SQL database. As a result, it does not impact overall system performance.

Key Takeaways

ICM Agent is built to reduce the heaviest part of immunization season workload: manual document comparison at scale—without removing human control.

If your team is already using MedicatOne cohorts, the student portal, a state registry interface, and/or VeriVax, ICM Agent is designed to close the “last mile” that still forces staff to do manual review.

Interested in learning more? Get in touch with our team, or sign up for the ICM Agent waitlist!

As college health and counseling teams face growing demand and not having enough time, new technology is helping providers focus more on students and less on screens. For health appointments, you have 20 minutes allotted for each visit. That’s 20 minutes to listen, diagnose, connect, and somehow document everything.

Counseling teams feel a similar squeeze. A session may be scheduled for 60 minutes, but that hour has to cover building rapport, working through concerns, and documenting progress. In reality, it often becomes 40 minutes of conversation and 20 minutes of paperwork—time that could be better spent supporting students.

So, you’re probably typing while talking, or staying late to finish notes after hours (maybe while eating lunch at your desk… again). But what if you could spend that time actually connecting with students — or finally make it to that 6 p.m. workout you’ve been missing?

There’s a better way to handle documentation — one that works quietly in the background while you focus on care. Let’s look at how ambient listening works and how it’s transforming the provider and student experience.

What Is an Ambient Listening Tool?

Think of ambient listening as your real-time documentation partner that seamlessly integrates with your EHR, like Medicat.

Using secure, permission-based AI, the tool “listens” to the natural conversation between a provider and a student during an appointment. As you focus on the student, it transcribes and structures the conversation in the background, automatically updating the clinical note in your EHR.

By the end of the session, your documentation is already organized and ready for quick review, edits, and sign-off — no extra typing, toggling, or note reconstruction required. You stay fully engaged in care; the ambient listener keeps your chart up to date, complete, and compliant.

How Does Ambient Listening Work?

Behind the scenes, ambient listening uses secure, AI-powered technology to simplify the documentation process from start to finish.

Here’s the play-by-play:

1. Secure Audio Capture: With the student’s consent, the conversation is recorded through the ambient listening tool.
2. Real-Time Transcription: Speech recognition technology converts spoken dialogue into accurate text as the visit unfolds.
3. Smart Summarization: AI identifies key details — like symptoms, assessments, and recommendations — and formats them into a clear, structured draft note.
4. Personalized Accuracy: The system learns your voice patterns over time, distinguishing you from other students in the room for even greater precision.
5. Quick Review and Sign-Off: At the end of the visit, review, make any necessary edits, and finalize your note. Documentation is completed before you leave the room.

It’s like having a trusted scribe working quietly in the background, so that you can stay focused on care, not the keyboard!

Why Providers Love It

Ambient listening isn’t just about saving time — it’s about giving time back.

• More Connection, Less Distraction: Look up, listen deeply, and build trust without your keyboard stealing the spotlight.
• Fewer After-Hours Notes: Leave the office on time, without a growing queue of unfinished notes.
• More Accurate Documentation: Notes are generated in real-time, capturing details you might forget later.
• Better Work-Life Balance: Enjoy that lunch break, take that yoga class, or just… rest.

With less time spent typing and more time spent connecting, care starts to feel personal again.

How It Fits Into Your Workflow

Here’s the best part: you don’t have to change how you work to benefit from it.

Ambient listening integrates directly with your existing EHR, fitting naturally into the appointments you already manage every day. Whether you’re a campus health provider documenting a student’s sore throat or a counselor capturing insights from a therapy session, the process feels familiar, just smoother and faster.

Your notes are drafted automatically, formatted for compliance, and ready for quick review before you move on to the next student. Less clicking. Less catching up. More time for meaningful care.

Privacy and Compliance You Can Count On

Privacy isn’t optional; it’s essential. The technology integrated within Medicat is built to keep student information safe, secure, and confidential.

End-to-End Encryption: Every word is encrypted from the moment it’s captured to the moment it’s stored, keeping conversations protected behind multiple layers of security.

• Controlled Access: Only authorized users within your EHR can view or manage the transcribed notes; no outsiders, no exceptions.
• Provider Control: You decide what gets saved, edited, or deleted before anything becomes part of the student’s record.
• HIPAA Compliance: The solution integrated within Medicat meets the highest standards for protecting health and education data.

Key Takeaways

Ambient listening helps providers stay focused on students while keeping documentation accurate and effortless. It saves time, reduces after-hours work, and supports stronger connections during each visit. Built with privacy and security at its core, the ambient listening technology integrated within Medicat meets the highest standards for protecting student health information.

As Medicat continues to expand its AI capabilities, every feature is designed to enhance care while keeping clinicians in control. When technology supports you behind the scenes, you can focus on what matters most… your students.

Explore Medicat’s campus health and counseling solutions or schedule a quick demo to see how we’re helping providers save time and strengthen student care.

Webinar Highlights: Q&A with University of Illinois Providers Katerina Rosenbeck, Nurse Practitioner, and Kaley Hennigh, Mental Health Care Manager.

Paperwork shouldn’t take longer than patient care. Yet for many college health and counseling providers, clinical documentation consumes precious hours each week—time that could be spent directly with students.

To solve this challenge, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s McKinley Health Center began using a new voice dictation tool called FluencyDirect that integrates with Medicat’s EHR.

For providers Kate and Kaley, the change has been transformative, giving them more time for students and less time tied to documentation. Continue reading to learn from their experience.

Q1: Before using voice dictation, how were you documenting patient visits?

Q2: After adopting voice dictation, what kind of difference did you notice in your workflow?

 Kate: The dictation tool sped up everything. Instead of clicking through boxes or typing endlessly, I can just say what I need and it gets entered. I was pleasantly surprised at how accurate it is, even with background noise. It also recognizes different accents, which is a big plus on a diverse campus like ours. For me, it cut my charting time dramatically and made the whole process feel less like a burden.

Kaley: It took a little practice at first, like any new tool, but once I got used to it, my note-taking time dropped by more than half. What used to take me 15+ minutes, I can now finish in under 5. Even for complex cases or crises, I can usually complete notes in 5 to 10 minutes.

Q3: What about working in shared spaces — does background noise interfere?

Kate: I work in a bullpen-style setup with two providers and it’s not an issue. The speech mic filters out conversations or background interruptions. Even if a nurse comes in to let me know a patient is ready, it doesn’t pick that up.

Kaley: I have my own office, so it’s quieter, but I still use the handheld mic with a stand. I just move it closer if needed. The nice part is you can control when it’s on or off, so you’re not accidentally recording things you don’t want to.

Q4: Dictation vs. Ambient Listening: What’s the Difference?

Q5: How does voice dictation fit into your daily schedules?

McKinley Health Center builds documentation time into each day—15 minutes per hour for medical providers and two 30-minute blocks for mental health staff.

Kate: I like to chart right after each patient while it’s still fresh. With dictation, those five minutes are enough, so I’m finished before the day ends.

Kaley: In our department, we have 30-minute morning and afternoon charting blocks. You can always tell who uses dictation. Their notes are wrapped up during that time, and their task lists are much shorter.

Q6: Beyond patient notes, do you use dictation for anything else?

Kate: Yes! I’ve also found it helpful for emails, letters, and project work. Basically, anywhere I’d be typing a lot, I use dictation.

Kaley: If I’m writing a letter for a student or drafting something longer in Word, I’ll use it. Once you get used to it, you realize how much time it saves beyond clinical charting.

Key Takeaways

Voice dictation has helped providers at McKinley Health Center reclaim valuable time, reduce documentation stress, and improve efficiency without compromising accuracy.

For both medical and mental health providers, it’s not just about saving time— it’s about creating space to focus on what matters most: student care.

Interested in hearing the full conversation? Watch the full webinar replay.

To get more information on how your team can implement this new tool, request a demo.

College health and counseling centers have a tough job: meet the complex needs of today’s students while keeping operations smooth, compliant, and efficient. The right electronic health record (EHR) system can make that job much easier — and certain features consistently stand out as game changers for campus staff.

So let’s dive into the seven EHR features that win the most love from our campus clients.

1. Automated Immunization Tools

2. Dashboards That Go Beyond the Basics

3. Centralized Risk Management

4. A Modern, Intuitive Interface

5. Appointment Lists at a Glance

6. Supervision & Training Tracking

7. Granular Permissions for Better Privacy

Key Takeaways

Each of these features speaks of a shared priority: more time with students, less time wrestling with technology. From automated immunization compliance to risk management and supervision tools, MedicatOne helps campus health and counseling teams work more efficiently, stay compliant, and deliver better care.

Interested in learning more? Explore our Product Gallery to see some of these tools in action!