How can I send a Lab Order ahead of the Office Visit?
A Lab Order needs an encounter in order to be entered and then transmitted.
If you only need to send the order a day or two in advance, you can now Check in the Appointment on the Scheduler up to 2 days ahead of time. Once you change the status of the appointment to Checked In, an encounter will be created for that day in the future.
You can then enter the Lab Order under Plan -> Labs and transmit
If you need to send the order in prior to 1 or 2 days ahead of the appointment, then you must enter a new appointment. We recommend having a "Lab Order Only" appointment type that would be set up to be non billable. You can enter the Lab Orders on this one and transmit.
Below are two suggested workflows when the providers need to order labs needed in future:
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- If you are currently seeing a patient and have an encounter, add the lab order and change the “Scheduled Date” to the future date. When the patient comes in, the phlebotomist can just go to Orders Management -> Pending Labs and find the lab orders and transmit. This screen will use the Scheduled Date to show the orders.
- If you are reviewing a lab result or get a phone message about a patient and wish to add a future lab order, Send a message to the appropriate staff:
- From the Lab Result screen, you can use the “New Msg” button at the top of the screen
- From the patient chart, you can use the Message tab at the bottom of the screen and click on the up arrow and “New Message” or go to Patient Messages screen and click on “New”
- In the message be sure to include labs you wish to have done and the diagnosis code(s)
- Nurse would then schedule an appt on nurse schedule and can transfer the Lab order list to the comments in the appointment and when patient comes in, check them in, add the lab order(s), transmit and close this new encounter
