Use this section to customize your settings related to laboratory orders and results.
Ordering & Requisitions
These settings configure the default appearance of your requisition forms and related documents. See Generating Lab/Imaging/Orders/Requisitions.
You can customize the information that shows up on the printable/ faxable/ savable requisition form. Including:
- Setting certain clinic lab account numbers(s) to appear at the top right of all requisitions. This can save time and easily allow the lab to connect the order to your account if you are commonly giving patients the printable/ faxable/ savable form, and they are taking it to specific labs.
- Setting only the ordering provider name and NPI to show, versus listing all users with NPI numbers on the requisition.
- Listing only the patient's primary phone number, or all numbers.
The default for "bill to" in the ordering window should be
You can optionally have your most common default billing instruction (Bill to Client Account = Practice Pay, Bill to Patient, Bill to Insurance) selected by default in the Add Order window, so that information shows up on the printable/ faxable/ savable order form. Note that this selection is informational only - it appears in the patient's Open Orders list and on the printable/ faxable/ savable requisition form. And the selection, if any, at the Add Order step does not flow through when sending orders electronically to a lab. A separate default can be set, if desired, for each bi-directional integrated lab.
Default notes to facility when ordering labs, scans, or referrals
You can customize the note to the facility that appears in the Add Order window, and flows through to any printable/ faxable/ savable requisition form generated for the order.
Labeling for lab orders added with a future date
When adding an order, you can check a box to indicate that the order should be scheduled for a future date, and then specify the desired future date. This allows clinic users to visualize and track future-scheduled (versus current) open orders. And can be used to provide suggested scheduling/ draw information to the patient on the applicable encounter summary and/ or requisition form.
You can customize how future-dated orders are labeled in the EHR and for the patient on the Patient Portal. For example, you might want them to be labeled as "Scheduled: [date]", or "Suggested: [date]". Suggested may be preferable where you want to be clear that the draw is not actually scheduled, and that the patient will need to schedule it themselves on or around the suggested date.
- Note that the chosen label should work with both "Date" and "for" after it. As in "Suggested Date: [date]" and "Suggested for: [date]".
Orders and order panels can be edited, even if they were added in an encounter note that has since been signed
This controls whether an order that was added inside an encounter note can be edited after the encounter note is signed.
Open Orders
Open orders are visible in the Open Orders block of the patient's chart, as well as the Open Orders task list.
Open order status options
An open order can be edited to change the order status, which is then visible with the open order. Use this setting to adjust the open order status options as needed to fit your workflow.
IV & Injection Therapy
Show open IV orders at the top of the patient's Open Orders block
Open IV orders can appear at the top of the patient's Open Orders block. Clicking on that open IV order creates an IV administration encounter note. And there are also options to print the IV order, as well as to cancel it (remove it from Open orders).
IV orders should automatically disappear from the patient's Open Orders block after how long
If they are set to appear at the top of the Open Orders block, open IV orders can be set to close (disappear from the Open Orders block) after a certain period of time has elapsed.
Clicking on an open IV order in the Open Orders block should create an IV Administration encounter note as a sub note or a parent-level note
Clicking on an open IV order creates a new encounter note to document administration of that IV. That encounter note can be created as (1) a sub note of the encounter where the IV was ordered, or (2) as a separate, parent-level note. A sub note is shown indented below the parent-level note in the Encounters block on the patient's chart.
Adding an injection to the encounter plan should create an open Injection order
Like IVs, injections are a special category of Alternate Plan in Cerbo. Injections can be set to show an open order at the top of the Open Orders block on the patient's chart. This is useful where the patient may be coming in for a recurring series of injections based on an initial order.
Lab Results
Use these settings to customize the behavior when adding results manually, and how longitudinal results are shown in the patient's lab tracker (see Manually adding results and Track Discrete Lab Values).
Manually-added results
Manually-Added Results
When manually adding structured data lab results, the checkbox to "Save a copy of results as report" to generate a lab result document should be checked or unchecked?
When results are manually added (by clicking on an open order), there is a checkbox option to "Save copy of results as report."
If this box is checked, then saving the results values also creates a lab result document that is saved to the patient's chart. This can be useful, for example, to give the patient a copy of in-house test results. If the box is not checked, then the structured data is saved and added to the patient's longitudinal lab data, but without any corresponding result document.
A lab result document generated for manually-added results should default to be shared with the patient on the portal
If you do generate a lab result document, you can use this setting to control whether that document should be shared with the patient on the Patient Portal by default.
Tracking Lab Values
To track a patient's structured data results that were received via an electronic lab integration or manually-entered, click on the bar graph icon at the top right of their Open Orders block.
Use the settings in this section to customize how that data is shown.
In the patient's structured/ trackable results table, the date columns should be expanded or condensed?
If the date columns are expanded, then every date for which there is any recorded lab value will have it's own column in the table (even if it is mostly blank). If condensed, then result data for each row will be shown side by side in that row, with the applicable date in each cell with the result.
The date columns should be sorted with which values on the left
You may choose to show results with the newest results on the left (reverse chronological order, which is the default). Or with the oldest results on the left.
When using text variables in Chart Parts to pull in multiple past values for a specific result, how should multiple result values be separated within the note?
Text variables can be used within Chart Part templates to pull specific lab values into the body of an encounter note. If desired, these can even be used to pull in multiple past values for the same specific result. This setting can be used to customize how multiple past readings will pull into the encounter note: all in one line, separated by a vertical line, or with each past reading on a new line.
Default settings for lab results that are received via incoming HL7/ integrated feed
Lab results for integrated labs come into the Imported Results block at the left of the Calendar page. The circular refresh arrow on that block is used to pick up new results. You can use the settings in this section to control the default settings for integrated lab result documents.
Default document title for imported lab results
You can customize the default title for lab result documents received via an electronic integration. So, for example, if you want to include the lab name and/ or patient's name in the document title (without having to manually edit the title each time), you can select the applicable option.
Needs review
Choose whether the "Needs review" checkbox is checked by default for imported lab results. Any document that is marked as needing review is added to the For Review task list for the specific reviewer, if selected (generally the ordering provider, who is auto-selected as the reviewer by default) or for all users.
Review results now
If "Review results now" is checked, then assigning the result document to the patient's chart automatically opens the result document in the regular document review window. That allows the user to add internal notes to the notes field, share the document with the patient, and notify the patient via secure message, if desired. A provider that is reviewing results directly from the imported labs block (versus from their task list after another user has triaged them) may want "Review results now" to be automatically checked.
Patient notification options
The options for "Patient Notification" in the document review window are: (1) No, patient not notified (2) Notification not needed (3) Yes, patient has been notified. If No, patient not notified is selected, then the document cannot be filed but can only be saved as Unreviewed (keeping it more prominently in the patients Unreviewed documents tab). Selecting the option to notify the patient via secure message in the document review window automatically changes this to "Yes, patient has been notified."
Results can be marked as "Notification not needed" if they should be able to be filed without needing to make a manual designation. But if an extra safeguard is needed to make sure that patient notification occurs, you can set this to default to "No, patient not notified."
Show in Pt's Online Portal
If "Show in Pt's Online Portal" is checked in the document review window, then the document is shared with the patient on the Patient Portal. You can use this setting to have "Show in Pt's Online Portal" checked by default for incoming labs, such that lab results are automatically shared with the patient as soon as they are assigned to that patient's chart.