Overview

You can upload handouts that you want to be able to print out and/or share with patients via the Patient Portal by going to Admin from the top menu and selecting Practice Documents. 

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Details

To add new documents, click on the plus icon in the upper right to upload documents from your computer. Use the dropdown menus to select the tab and select/create subfolders. You will want to make sure to select Handouts as the document category for documents that should be shared with patients.




To share a handout with a patient that has already been uploaded to your Practice Documents you can assign them manually to a patient's chart by:

  • From the patient's chart, go to Admin > Practice Documents
  • Right-click on the handout you want to share and select "Copy to Current Patient's Chart"
  • Select the document type and modify any other information, as needed, then click DONE! File Document. The checkbox for "Pt can view on Portal" will be checked by default, so if you do not uncheck this box, saving the document to the patient's chart makes it visible to them on the Labs & Documents tab of their Patient Portal.
  • You can print a paper copy using the print icon at the top of the document view window.



Prescribing a single handout as part of a note plan

When you're inside an Encounter Note, you can also do this process more quickly by hovering over the Plan block and selecting the Add Handout option:

This will pop open a box with all documents filed under the Handouts tab of your Practice Documents so you can assign it to the patient.


Using Handouts with Chart Parts

You can also assign handouts as actions associated with Chart Part templates. This means you can share a handout while also adding text and other actions (diagnoses, plan items, etc.) to your encounter note. 


To do this, edit a specific Chart Part under Admin > Manage > Chart Parts, and select "Handout" from the Add Action dropdown. You can then use the search bar on the right to find the handout you want to associate. When you use that Chart Part, it will suggest sharing that document with the patient along with any other suggestion actions associated with the Chart Part.


Sharing a Handout with ALL Patients at once

If you want to share a handout with all patients at once, you can go to Admin >> Practice Documents and upload the file into the tab called "Patient Portal". If you don't see this tab, reach out to [email protected] so we can enable it for you. This tab will have the patient-portal icon on it. Anything filed in that tab is automatically available to all your patients on their patient portal Labs & Documents tab, generally under a folder called "General Resources for All Patients". 

Note - if you have a tab that is called something like "Pt Portal" instead, this will not work (it must be called "Patient Portal")


Handouts & Alternate Plan Items

For information/ recommendations that you want to share with a patient that do not necessarily need to be formatted in a specific way, you might instead consider using Alternate Plan items. The advantages of Alternate Plan items over handouts are:

  • You can tailor the information/ recommendation to the specific patient when adding the Alternate Plan item to the encounter note.
  • Alternate Plan recommendations that are added to the encounter note Plan box are automatically included with the rest of the plan in the encounter summary, as well as on the patient's Wellness Plan.

You can also create Alternate Plan Items that correspond to specific handouts, with text in the Alternate Plan Item description directing the patient to see the handout shared under their Labs and Documents tab for more information. Then you might create a Chart Part to quickly assign both the handout AND the matching Alternate Plan item.


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