Welcome to the Instinct Treatment Plan Quick Reference Guide. Use this handy guide to get up to speed on the basics of Instinct in 15 minutes or less.
Table of Contents
Logging In
- Find the Instinct icon on your computer and open it.
- Enter your PIN.

A few things to keep in mind:
- Don’t know your PIN? Please contact your hospital administrator.
- Putting Instinct on a TV screen? Log in using the TV PIN of “0000”. This will not auto log off and is only used for displaying Instinct on TV screens.
- Instinct will log out after 5 minutes of inactivity. Use ctrl+space as a shortcut for logging out.
Instinct Overview
Instinct’s entire program is a few simple parts:
- Status Board: This is your home base where you’ll find a list of checked-in patients with key data
- Treatment Plan: Click on a patient name to access their Tx Sheet and other information
- Vitals: Click on the Vitals button to see key trends for a visit
- Invoice: A handy audit tool for a patient’s invoice
Status Board
The Status Board is your home base for finding lists of patients and is split into a few different boards.

My Board
- This is your personalized list of patients. It is unique to you and will only display your patients or the patients you’ve pinned.
- Veterinarians: your patients will automatically display in “My Board”.
- Other staff: any patients you “pin” will appear in “My Board”.
📓 Please Note: To “pin” a patient, you’ll need to locate the patient on another board first. Then click the icon to the left of the patient’s name to pin them to your board.
Outpatient Board
- All hospital outpatients will display in this section.
- This is where patients will appear after they are checked in to your practice software (if connected).
Inpatient Board
- All hospital inpatients will display in this section.
- They will appear in this area when they are moved from another board in Instinct.
Boarding
- If your hospital has a boarding facility or has frequent medical boarders, you can use this board to keep those patients separate. You can also use this board as a sandbox for practice patients while learning Instinct.
📓 Please Note: To move a patient from board to board, find a patient, click on the 3-dot menu to the left of their name, and then choose “OP”, “IP”, or “BP” (for outpatient, inpatient, or boarding boards, respectively).
OTW (On-the-Way)
- This board allows you to make Tx Sheets in advance of a patient’s arrival.
- Patients with pre-made Tx Sheets are displayed here ahead of their visit.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to add future patients to the OTW board ahead of time. Once they are checked in to your practice software, Instinct will automatically move them to the OP board.
- Looking for more info? Check out our OTW User Guide.
Status Board Tips
- Click the “brain” icon (Instinct logo) at the top left hand corner from any screen to return to the Status Board.
- Use the search bar in the left navy menu to find your patients by name. (You can also use this to find checked-out patients if you want to reference previous Tx Sheets and vital signs.)
- Sorting: The OP, IP and BP boards can be sorted by patient name or check in time using the little orange/gray arrows or by triage tags using the clock icon:

- Tx View Toggle: This feature allows for toggling between the default cage card info and treatment schedule overview. The medical team usually keeps the Tx View on. The front desk team usually views Instinct with it off.

- Colors: Completed orders show in grey, orders due now show in yellow, upcoming orders show in green, and overdue orders show in red.
- Numbers: The numbers represent simply the number of treatments at the given hour for that patient.
- Hover over a block in the Tx View to display a preview of the tasks to complete during that time block.

- Status Board Filters: You can filter your patients in a variety of ways. Apply multiple filters to further refine your patient list. To remove a filter, click the ‘filters’ button and choose ‘clear filters’.

TX Sheet
Click on a patient’s name on the Status Board to go to their Treatment Plan.

Predicted Billing: on the bottom of the left side menu, you’ll see a handy snapshot of billing information including the current invoice total, the total of any missed charges (charges for the patient not yet entered on your main software invoice), the total amount spent in the last 24 hours, and predicted estimates representing what the bill will be in total in 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours (if the scheduled plan of treatments occurs as listed).

A Guide to Ordering Treatments
- To add orders to a Tx Sheet, find the top box that says “+Add Order” and start typing.


After finding the item you need, enter the details for your order.
- Enter a quantity
- Enter a frequency
- Enter the start date/time
- Enter the end date/time, if you wish (the default is Check Out)
- Enter any relevant order notes (best practice is to over-communicate order information in this section)
- If you want to require a note when completing, use the “mandatory treatment notes” toggle
- Change the doctor (who the charge will be listed under), if indicated
3. Ordering by using Groups
- Groups allow you to quickly add a set of related treatments.
- To order a group, search in the “+Add Order” bar and groups will appear in their own section.

- When using a group, you can select or deselect any product in that group (orange/gray button). You can also change the frequency and quantity of each order. The orange dot means the order is ON, and the grey dot means the order is OFF. You can also select/deselect all using the button at the top.

- When you are in the group order window, you can modify all of the properties one by one or in bulk by using the “Bulk Edit” button at the top. Bulk Edit will edit the items selected in orange at that time.
- Once ready, click “Order” at the bottom of the screen to populate all orders onto the Tx sheet.
A Guide to Completing Treatments
- Instinct is designed to mirror how you think and work. Example: When ready to do treatments, you think, “I want to do the 8am treatments.”
- When you are ready to complete treatments, simply click on the time or column for the hour you want to complete.

- Clicking on the time or column will bring you to an organized to-do list of treatments due/overdue/upcoming for that hour. This is called the completion screen.
|| You can also get to any patient’s completion screen right from the Status Board.
Vitals
Patient vitals are charted here so you can quickly and easily view trends throughout each visit.

- Vitals are recorded by completing treatments on the Tx Sheet or by recording them directly in the vitals screen.
- Enter a vital measurement in the Vitals screen using the relevant boxes towards the right and click “record”.
- The value box and note box are both optional. For each vital you only need to record something in one of the boxes. This allows you to record notes easily.
- Use the the toggle to “only show active” vitals if you want to see only the vitals scheduled on the Tx Sheet. Turn it off to show all the vitals you can trend for patients.

💡 ProTip: The high/low value for the visit displays to the left of the vital graph.

💡 ProTip: Click on the Vitals History button at the bottom left of the vitals screen to see a table view of vitals for the patient’s entire life (across all visits).
Invoice
The Instinct Invoice is a valuable audit tool that helps you ensure a complete list of charges are being captured in the background. Once ready, you can audit and enter these charges in your main practice software.
- Charges automatically appear on the invoice in one of two ways: (1) as orders are completed on the Tx Sheet (such as a medication) or (2) as timed charges that accrue automatically at timed intervals (such as fluid pump fees or hospitalization).
- Items with a flag = missed charges not yet entered on practice software
- Items in sync = items completed in Instinct and entered on practice software invoice
- Download icon = items entered directly in the practice software invoice that were never in Instinct (transferred to the Instinct invoice to keep predicted billing accurate)

Handling Flags: If an item has a flag in Instinct you have two options:
1. Enter the item with the exact quantity on your practice software invoice. The flag will then change to a sync icon.
2. Void the flagged item. To void a charge on the Instinct Invoice, use the button to the left of the charge and click the “void” button.
Invoice Revision History
You can also see who created, voided, or un-voided individual invoice line items by clicking the 3-dot menu within the Invoice screen as shown below:

You’ll then see the revision history below the line item:

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