Patients
Episodes of care
Track each course of treatment with its discipline, status, physicians and diagnoses.
An episode of care is one course of treatment in one discipline, such as speech therapy (SLP) or occupational therapy (OT). The Episodes tab on a patient's chart lists them, open episodes first.
A patient can have episodes in several disciplines at once, for example speech and occupational therapy in parallel. Within one discipline only one episode can be open at a time: discharge it before you start another.
Add an episode#
- Open the patient's chart and click the Episodes tab.
- Click Add Episode.
- Choose the Discipline and the Status.
- Enter the Referral date and, once treatment starts, the Start of care date.
- Pick the Referral source from your referral sources and the contact there who Referred by. For a source not on your list, or a detail about the one you picked (a flyer, a campaign), use Source details.
- Pick the Primary provider and the physicians (see below).
- If the services are delivered for a school or district, pick its School contract. The episode's records then belong to the school (see School contracts).
- Add the diagnoses, then click Add Episode.
To change an episode, open the row menu and click Edit. The discipline cannot change after the episode is created.
Status#
| Status | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Referred | A referral arrived and nothing is scheduled yet. |
| Evaluation scheduled | The evaluation is on the schedule. |
| Active | Treatment is under way. Needs a start of care date. |
| On hold | Treatment is paused, for example during a hospital stay. |
| Discharged | Treatment ended. Needs a discharge date; add a discharge reason if you have one. |
A Referred episode waits in the referral queue unless the chart is Inactive or Discharged. Its menu on the Episodes tab also has Intake Details, Mark Evaluation Scheduled and Not Proceeding.
Physicians#
Each episode records up to three physicians from your clinic's physician list:
- Referring physician: who sent the patient to you.
- Ordering physician: who ordered therapy. Some payers, Medicaid among them, require it on the claim.
- Certifying physician: who signs the plan of care.
The same physician can fill more than one of these. Above the list, Current physicians shows the physicians of the patient's open episodes.
If a physician is missing from the list, click Add a physician not on the list under the field, enter their name and, if you have it, their NPI. NeatPractice adds them to your clinic's physician list in Setup and picks them on the episode. You need permission to manage physicians to do this. Complete their address, fax and signature details later in Setup.
A physician who is on any episode cannot be deleted from Setup; deactivate them instead. A deactivated physician stays on the episodes that already name them.
Diagnoses#
Add each diagnosis by searching the ICD-10-CM catalog by code or description, and mark its role:
- Treating: the therapy diagnosis you are treating.
- Medical: the underlying medical diagnosis.
A new diagnosis must be a billable code that is valid today. Codes stay in the order you list them, and that is the order claims use: the first four are marked Claim pointer and are the ones a claim points to by default. An episode holds up to 12 diagnoses. Drag a diagnosis by its handle to reorder the list (or focus the handle, press Space, move it with the arrow keys and press Space again; Escape puts it back), and click the trash can to remove one.
If a code on an episode is later retired, the list shows Not billable today next to it. Replace it with a current code before you bill new visits.
Delete an episode#
Delete an episode only when it was opened by mistake: open the row menu, click Delete and confirm. To end treatment, edit the episode and mark it Discharged instead. Deleted episodes stay in the chart's change history. An episode with authorizations, visits, documents, plans of care or charges on it cannot be deleted; discharge it instead.