10. Consults and Referrals

Chapter Contents

Requesting a Consultation Appointment | Printing the Consult Request |  Booking the Specialist Appointment | Edit Specialist Listing

Table of Contents

Consultation Form

The consultation form allows you to request the booking of a specialist appointment for the patient quickly and easily. When you have selected the staff to direct the ‘request for booking’ to, the form goes automatically into the desired person’s special mailbox on the "con" tab. From the "con" tab the staff booking specialist appointments can pick-up the request and process through each step. Both doctor and staff can check the status of the task, from waiting for the specialist to call back, waiting for the patient to call back and completion of the task at any time.

REQUESTING A CONSULTATION APPOINTMENT

1. From the appointment screen, click on "E" for the Encounter screen of the patient, then click the ‘Consultation’ link in the upper left hand corner of the Encounter screen.
   OR the ‘Consultation’ button in the Patient’s Master Demographic window
2. A pop-up window will appear, with previous consultations made for this patient on the right, and a link to request a new specialist appointment be booked for the patient on the left (click on ‘NEW CONSULTATION’)
   
3. The patients demographic information will pull into the form: prescription info from the Rx program, and ‘Ongoing Concerns’ from the encounter screen
   
4. Select the type of ‘Service’ from the drop down menu (eg Allergies, Cardiology)
5. When you select the ‘Service’ the program automatically narrows down the list for the next area to only the doctors in that particular Service
6. Click on the next drop down menu for the ‘Consultant’ to show a list of doctors to match the Service you have chosen
7. Clicking the desired doctor will insert all the doctors address and phone information
8. Clicking on the next drop down allows you to indicate whether this appointment is ‘URGENT - NON-URGENT or RETURN’
9. Click on the drop down menu to the right for the "Send To" function. This function sends the consultation request to the individual who does the booking of specialist appointments in your office
10. Fill in the reason for the consultation and any other pertinent information of which you want the specialist to be aware
11. Clicking on ‘SUBMIT CONSULTATION REQUEST’ at the bottom of the screen will send the ‘Consultation’ to the "con" tab where the staff can pick it up to book the appointment and print and fax a copy of the consultation.

• Another option is to print the request and hand deliver to the staff booking appointments.

PRINTING THE CONSULT REQUEST FORM

1. Click on the ‘Submit Consultation Request and Print Preview’ button to print the form for processing
2. The ‘Fax Footer’ button is to put the confidential fax footer information on the form when faxed
3. To print the form, click the PRINT button

• FEATURE: Each of the information boxes will expand as needed by the quantity of information entered into the form

BOOKING THE SPECIALIST APPOINTMENT

From the "con" tab on the top of the appointment screen, the staff booking specialist appointments can pick up the request and process through each step. Both doctor and staff can check the status of the task, from waiting for the specialist to call back, waiting for the patient to call back and completion of the task.

1. Click on the "Con" tab to pick up the ‘Consultation’ form and book the appointment
2. Click on the drop-down menu to select the doctor or team you want or the ‘view all’ selection to view the entire list of consultation booking requests
3. Clicking on ‘Consultation Requests for This Team’ will display a list of consultation forms needing to be processed
4. The letters under the ‘Status’ column indicate the progress of the specialist booking:
   ND: nothing done
   SR: specialist response (waiting for the specialist to call back with the appointment)
   PR: patients response (waiting for the patient to call back for their appointment information)
5. Click on the hot-link under the ‘Service’ column to open the patient’s Consultation request
6. This will open the patient’s Consultation request to proceed with booking an appointment
7. Continue with the normal procedure for booking a specialist appointment for a patient
8. Clicking the hot link ‘Appointment Date’ will cause a calendar to pop up
9. Clicking on the appropriate date for the appointment will insert the date into the form
10. Before clicking on "completed", print the document to fax to the specialist office (instructions above)
11. When "completed" is clicked, the consultation will disappear from this list and be displayed in the patients master demographic record when the ‘Consultation’ button is clicked.
12. The ‘Consultation’ form can be viewed again for information by clicking on the ‘CONSULT’ button in the Patients Detail Record accessed through the ‘Search’

Return to TOP

EDIT SPECIALIST LISTING

These instructions are for editing the specialist list that shows in the Consultation Form.

1. From the Appointment screen, click on the "con" tab, then click on EDIT SPECIALISTS LISTING
2. Click SHOW ALL SERVICES
3. Check to see if the category of service you wish to add to is already in the list
   

ADD SERVICE

1. If the service you are looking for is not on the existing list, click ADD SERVICE
2. Type in the service you want to add in the box
3. Click on the ADD SERVICE button
   

ADD SPECIALIST

1. Click on ADD SPECIALIST
2. Type in all the pertinent info for the new specialist
   NOTE: DO NOT type a return (enter) in the address box.  It will cause an error in the program
3. Click ADD SPECIALIST button
   

ADD DOCTOR TO SERVICE GROUP

1. Click on SHOW ALL SERVICES
   
2. Click on the specialty of the doctor you have just added
3. You will see a list of all the specialists.  Click on the checkbox beside each doctor that should be in this SPECIALTY group
   

DELETING A SERVICE

1. Click DELETE SERVICES
2. Select the checkbox beside the SERVICE group you want to delete
3. The doctors that were in this group will still be in the list, so be sure they are in another group
4. Click the DELETE SERVICE button