Patients will need to be manually registered and checked in/out of Instinct if your practice is unconnected (details on registering a new patient are under the ‘Checking In/Creating a New Patient’ section below). You can also use the manual check in feature if you want to set up an OTW patient Tx sheet or if you experience a temporary loss of connection to your main practice software.
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Connected Hospitals: If you are experiencing a temporary outage with your practice management system connection, you can always manually check patients in to Instinct and the check in/out will sync back up once your connection is restored.
Checking in an Existing Patient
- Click the Calendar icon in the left sidebar to open Business Office.

- Search for the patient by ID or name and select ‘Check In’.

💡 ProTip: If you are a connected hospital and have already checked in/registered the patient in your PIMS, you can enter their patient ID within the ‘Look up by patient id…’ field above and search. This should fetch the patient details so you do not have to re-enter them!
- Next, select a Status (Inpatient, Outpatient, Boarding or OTW) followed by any other applicable information and then click ‘Check In’.

You should now see your patient on the Status Board you selected!
Checking In/Creating a New Patient
- Click the calendar icon in the upper left corner to open Business Office. Then, select ‘+ New Patient’ within the ‘Patient Registration’ section.

- Fill in all the required fields (indicated by an asterisk *). Be sure to copy the Patient ID and Account ID exactly as the appear in your main practice software.

Two optional fields are available for each Account: Account Label and Account Notes. If something is filled out in the Account Label field, this will replace the First Name and Last Name of the Account when being displayed (ABC Rescue Group, for example). Account Notes are private notes only your practice can see and are not included in any printed/downloaded medical records.
You can also add alternate contacts to any Account via the “Add an alternate contact” button.
💡 ProTip: Search by Last Name to easily add a new patient to an existing Account.
The 3-dot menu next to Address, Email, and Phone allow you to edit the name of the label, add additional contact methods, and mark a “preferred” contact method (visible via orange star):

- After clicking “Save & Check In”, select a Status (Inpatient, Outpatient, Boarding or OTW) followed by any other applicable information and then click ‘Check In’.

You should now see your patient on the Status Board you selected!
💡 ProTip: If you are creating an On-the-Way (OTW) Tx sheet, be sure to adjust the Check In Time to a future date/time. Find out more about this in our OTW Guide.
Checking Out
If a patient was checked in manually, you must also check them out manually.
- Head over to the calendar icon (Business Office), find your patient, and then select the ‘Check Out’ button to the right.

- This can also be performed from the 3-dot menu on the Status Board.

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