Check-in

Check a patient in when they arrive for an appointment. The check-in window brings together what the front desk reviews at the desk, then marks the patient Arrived on the schedule for everyone in your clinic.

Open the check-in#

Click Check In in any of these places:

• the appointment's menu in the appointment list
• the appointment's summary on the calendar
• the bottom of the Edit Appointment window

You need permission to manage the schedule and to open the patient's chart. For a group appointment, pick the patient at the top of the window; each patient is checked in on their own.

When you open the check-in from the Edit Appointment window, Cancel takes you back to that appointment. Finishing the check-in closes both windows.

Review each step#

Patient details. Check the name, date of birth, phones, email and address with the patient. To change anything, click Edit in Chart: the chart opens in a new tab. Tick the confirmation box when the details are right.

Coverage. The coverages in effect on the date of the visit, in billing order, with the payer, plan and copay. When the patient has no coverage on that date, NeatPractice warns you and treats the visit as self-pay. Check the insurance card and tick the confirmation box.

Eligibility. The latest eligibility result for the primary coverage. Click Run Eligibility to ask the payer again for the visit's date (you need permission to manage coverage, and the payer must accept eligibility checks). Without the Eligibility checks add-on this step shows only a result already on file, and there is no Run Eligibility.

Authorizations. The authorizations that cover the visit's date and discipline, with the visits or units left and any alert, such as an authorization close to expiring.

Consents. The forms the patient still needs to sign. NeatPractice asks for the privacy notice acknowledgment, the consent to treatment and the financial policy for every visit, the assignment of benefits and the release of information when a payer is billed, and the telehealth consent for a telehealth visit. Choose Sign Now on a form to record it: hand the tablet to the patient or guardian and they sign with a finger or stylus. When you come back, the form is no longer listed.

Copay. The patient's expected share for the visit, estimated from the coverage's copay, deductible and coinsurance. Choose Collect Payment to take it now: the amount starts at the estimate, and the payment is held for this visit and applied to its charge once the charge exists. See Patient payments. You need permission to post patient payments.

Finish the check-in#

Click Check In. The patient's status changes to Arrived and open calendars update right away. NeatPractice keeps a record of who checked the patient in, when, and which steps were confirmed.

The check-in record stays even if the patient's status changes later, and checking the patient in again adds a new one.

Patients can also check themselves in on a clinic device: see Check-in kiosk. Their arrival shows as a kiosk check-in on the calendar.