Contacts can be added to patient files to record details of individuals related to a patient, such as next of kin, emergency contacts, case managers and more.
There are two types of Contact that can be added to a patient file:
Contact - Information must be added from scratch every single time when adding a Contact. Ideal for entering information for individuals that are related only to one specific patient.
Linked Contact - Information is pulled from existing Referrers, Payer Contacts and other Patient Files saving you from having to enter the information from scratch every time. Ideal for recording information for individuals that are added to multiple patient files.
Adding a Contact to a Patient File
To add a new contact open the Patient File > Contacts tab and select Add Contact.
Fill in the contact details in the provided areas and attach files as required. You'll also need to select the Relationship this individual has with the patient and whether the contact relates to all accounts or a specific account. Selecting a Relationship will also define the Merge Tag, which allows you to automatically insert contact information in Letter, Email and SMS templates. More on this below.
Click Save to finalise your changes.
Adding a Linked Contact
To add a Linked Contact, use the Add Linked Contact button.
You can then search for another Patient file, Referring Doctor or a Third-Party Payer Contact.
After selecting the Linked Contact that you wish to add to the patient file, you'll see the new contact screen populated with the existing information for the Linked Contact.
You'll also need to select the Relationship this individual has with the patient and whether the contact relates to all accounts or a specific account. Selecting a Relationship will also define the Merge Tag, which allows you to automatically insert contact information in Letter, Email and SMS templates. More on this below.
Click Save to finalise your changes.
Contact Relationships & Merge Tags
As explained above, when adding Contacts and Linked Contacts to a patient file, you will need to select a Contact Relationship to define their relation to the patient. In addition, each Relationship has a corresponding Merge Tag, which allows you to automatically insert contact information in Letter, Email and SMS templates.
Contact Relationships and their corresponding Merge Tags are managed in Settings > General > Contact Relationships.
To insert details for these contacts in Letter, Email and SMS templates, find the Contacts drop-down list in the Patient Fields section, which will contain all your relationships.
Use the drop-down list to insert fields into your template as required.
The example below shows an address block structure for our example Surgeon contact relationship.
Note: When adding multiple contacts with the same relationship for the same account, a number will be added to the end of the Merge Tag as shown below.
If listing multiple contacts with the same relationship is the norm in your practice, and you wish to insert both contacts into templates, you will need to factor this in when creating your templates. You will need to manually add the appropriate number to the end of the merge tag, for example:
