The first thing to understand is that patients and accounts are treated as separate entities ('things') in Medilink.
Patient's are pretty straightforward, and represent a single person.
Accounts are the entity that is financially responsible for it's patient(s). There are 3 main account categories:
- Personal - Can only have one patient attached to it.
- Family - Can have multiple patients attached. Typically they all have the same address and Medicare number.
- Third Party - Some other entity (business/organization). Cannot claim to Medicare.
They can have all sorts of linkings between one another:
1. Search for and select the relevant patient
2. Once the patient is selected, go to the Edit Patient screen
4. In the Edit Patient screen choose Attach To
If you already have a patient and want to attach them to multiple accounts, when you use the Attach To button in the Edit Patient screen you should choose Duplicate, instead of using the Transfer option (which would remove them from their original account).
Note | We realize that the word duplicate is a bit misleading here because it doesn't really duplicate the patient; really it just creates a link to another account.
Once a patient is attached to multiple accounts, they show up in the search box in slightly different ways.
The old style search shows multiple separate rows for each 'duplication' of the patient. The newer style search groups the accounts that the patient is attached to in a separate box below.
With that in mind, once you have attached a patient to multiple accounts it then becomes important that users understand the concept and choose the correct patient account.
Later if you want to remove a patient from an account you must first clear any balance they have, and then use Tools Menu >> Remove Patient From Account.
Later if you want to remove a patient from an account you must first clear any balance they have, and then use Tools Menu >> Remove Patient From Account.
A little caveat here is if you try and remove a patient from their own Personal account it won't t let you remove them, (it's a safeguard), but you can do it anyway using a bit of shuffling and the Transfer option.
