Identifying Incomplete Visits
If you have not already read Patient Check-out Overview, please do so before proceeding.
Summary
When a patient is checked out, there may still be information to be entered on the visit. The most typical case is titer or other lab results which will not be available for a couple days. If so, the Visit Status should be left Pending. When the final entry work is done, the status can be changed to Complete. This lets you identify visits which are still waiting to have information entered.
Be clear that this is for information related to this visit, not information about a follow-up visit. If a patient receives a TB skin test place and is due back in two days for the read, the read will go on a separate visit record. There is nothing more to enter on the current visit.
There are other possible reasons to leave a visit pending. In some clinics, charting notes get entered the next day. It may be that there is a need to get authorization for a referral from the insurance carrier. The decision on how to use the Visit Status field should be based on your clinic's procedures.
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If you use the Clinic Status Whiteboard, a visit is moved from the Whiteboard to the list of discharged patients when a Completion Time is entered in the visit record. Changing the Visit Status to Complete automatically inserts the completion time, so that also removes the visit from the Whiteboard. If your clinic leaves Visit Status set to Pending until all work is done with the visit, including receiving lab results, something that might not happen for a couple days, then enter the Completion Time when the patient leaves to remove the visit from the Whiteboard without change the status to Complete. The only visits that should be seen on the Whiteboard are for patients currently in the clinic. |
