August 2021 EMR Release Updates

Welcome to the EMR release notes page! These notes will provide information on the functionality of new features.

Upcoming Appointments on the Patient Info Bar

Emailing Clients from Instinct

Improved Appointment and Drop-off Cards Now Display Patient ID

Patient Info Bar Visual Improvements

Plumb’s Veterinary Medication Guides (VMGs)

Updated “Deceased” Patient Icon

⚖ Financial Ledger Permission

For staff to access the Financials & Account Ledger screens, a hospital administrator must add at least one of the following permissions to your preferred user roles: Payment Record, Payment Refund, Payment Void, or Financial Ledger. Users who only have the Financial Ledger permission added to their role will have view-only access of the Account Ledger screen.

📓 Please Note: Your hospital must also have our Payments feature previously enabled by contacting us at support@instinct.vet.

💰 Financials Screen

Our new Financials screen is found by heading to ‘Business Office’ followed by clicking ‘Financials’ at the top of the page. By default, this screen will only display Accounts that have Balances; however, you can always search any Account in the database if needed.

Alternatively, you can click on ‘Payments & Ledger’ at the bottom of any patient invoice to view their specific Financials screen within the Business Office.

You’ll then see a list of all financial history for the patient as well as their Account Balance and Balance ages (over 30, 60, 90, and 120 days). The Payments pane will also automatically open on the right hand side for you to capture a Payment, if needed.

💡ProTip: Be sure to check out the EMR Financials and Account Ledger Guide for a thorough break down of this helpful feature!

The rVet Sharing toggle will be added to the chart document upload screen for EMR hospitals with the rVet feature enabled.

🪂Drop-Off Availability

We will be increasing the maximum Drop-Off Availability to 100 for EMR hospitals with the Appointment Calendar feature enabled.

✨ Upcoming Appointments on the Patient Info Bar!

You can now see Upcoming Appointments on the Patient Info Bar! Both Checked In and Checked Out Patients will display an Appointments section, located below the Patient section of the Patient Info Bar.

📓 Please Note: To see Upcoming Appointments, you must have the Appointments Calendar feature enabled at your clinic by contacting us at support@instinct.vet.

If there are no appointments or drop-offs scheduled, the section will display No Upcoming Appointments.

All Appointments and Drop-Offs will be displayed chronologically by date and time. Drop-Offs will always display at the start of each scheduled day, before any other same day appointments.

Each Appointment or Drop-Off will show you the following:

Date and time of Appointment
Any Drop-Offs will display ‘Drop-Off’ after the date instead of time
Provider
Appointment Type
3-dot-menu to Edit Appointment or View the Appointment in the Calendar

Cancelled, No Show Appointments/Drop-Offs, and any Appointments/Drop-Offs in the past will not display in the Patient Info Bar just yet (coming later!).

Additionally, each Appointment and Drop-Off will show a tooltip when hovering over each.

If you are currently Editing an Appointment from the Patient Info Bar and click Edit on another Appointment on the screen, you will get a warning message asking if you want to switch Appointment information without saving changes:

📧 Emailing Clients from Instinct

The Comm Log panel now includes the option to send an outbound email to your clients! The Outgoing Email is also automatically logged in the Comm Log for reference. You also have the option to enter a new email address or select an existing email via dropdown from those already associated with the client account. Two-way messaging is not currently supported at this time.

📓 Please Note: To utilize email messaging, Comm Log and the brand new Client Tools feature must be enabled at your clinic by contacting us at support@instinct.vet. Additionally, users must have the Comm Log Outbound Messages permission enabled in the EMR Admin staff role to be able to email clients.

📅 Appointment Reminders

We’ve added the option to send an automatic email reminder to your clients regarding upcoming appointments! In the appointment card, you will now see a Reminder Toggle (to turn ON and OFF the reminder) and a Remind At dropdown (to choose how long before the appointment the reminder should send).

In order to send an Appointment Reminder email, you must first toggle this option ON and select how long before the appointment to send the reminder with the new dropdown field.

📓 Please Note: Reminders can only be automatically sent to the client if there is at least 1 hour before the scheduled appointment. If the time options before the appointment have already elapsed, they will simply be grayed out. For example, if an appointment is in less than 24 hours any reminder options for 24 hours or longer will not be available.

If there is no email address for the client entered in Instinct you’ll see a message at the bottom letting you know, however, you can still move forward with setting an Appointment Reminder and go back to add the email address at a later time for it to go out as scheduled!

Once an Appointment with a Reminder is scheduled, it will display a visual icon (bell) on the Appointment card on the schedule. Hovering over the Appointment card will also show details of the Reminder.

In addition, you can see when an email is sent and if the associated account does not have a valid email address on file as shown below.

Once the specified duration of the reminder has elapsed, an email is sent to the client reminding them of the Appointment.

📆 Improved Appointment and Drop-off Cards Now Display Patient ID

On the Appointments calendar screen, patient cards for both appointments and drop-offs will now display the Patient ID below the patient name for easy reference!

🔖 Patient Label Updates

Weight (in kgs): Checked In patient’s will have the most recent weight recorded on their active visit.
DOB: Patient’s Date of Birth
Printed Date and Time: When the label is printed
Signalment: Signalment and Patient ID have swapped places and Signalment now displays first
Visit Summary: Checked In patient’s will have the most recent visit summary text displayed for the patient’s active visit, and Checked Out patient’s visit summary will always be blank since the patient does not have an active visit.
Account and rVet Info: Any account or rVet information will display on the bottom of the label.

*Example of full Patient Label with all information*

📓 Please Note: Checked Out patient’s will not display weight on their label since they do not have an active visit, however, this field is underlined so you can hand write the weight if needed!

Checked-In patient with active visit weight

Checked-Out patient with no active visit weight

🆒 Patient Info Bar Visual Improvements

The Owner Section of the Patient Info Bar is getting the makeover treatment!

What changed:

If an owner has an Account Label (added via Business office), the label will be displayed at the top of the Owner Section.
Primary Contact Items will be marked with an orange star.
Hover text has also been added to a Contact Item if it’s marked as ‘Primary’ or if the contact item has been updated with a custom label.

💊 Plumb’s Veterinary Medication Guides (VMGs)

You now have access to Plumb’s Client Handouts called Veterinary Medication Guides (VMGs) for Prescription Medications! If a VMG is available for a product, it will be accessible anywhere that you find Plumb’s in Instinct.