Often clinics want to keep track of whether an animal is or is not already sterilized. This is most relevant when you are making wellness appointments, especially for animals who will be treated at your clinic repeatedly.
Marking an Animal as Already Sterilized
In HQ, you can mark an animal as already being sterilized and/or you can make this question available online and make it mandatory or optional.
Internally
When making a Wellness appointment internally, you will see the fields to mark an animal as already sterilized on the Animal Information step. If an option is chosen here, it will be carried through to the animal on subsequent appointments.
Externally
To enable the same question when clients make wellness appointments online, go to Settings > E-Appointments and go into the wellness appointment (does not work with spay/neuter appointments). Tick the Enable “previously sterilized” question checkbox. You can optionally tick Make response required as well.
The Status Carries Through
If an animal has already been sterilized in HQ, you do not need to mark that they are sterilized. HQ knows by virtue of receiving a spay or neuter that the animal is in fact sterilized. This status will carry through with the animal in many places in the system.
Troubleshooting Tip: If a pet was previously spayed/neutered at your clinic and the status is not properly reflected, you will need to return to date of their S/N appointment. Review the treatment sheet and ensure the exam has the Surgical Candidate selected as Yes and the Plan: Surgically Sterilize is marked Accept. Click Done to update the exam. You’ll need to click Checkout again for this information to be updated.
Merge Field
You may want to drop this status into your own templates. By default, it’s already included in the HQ Treatment Sheet and Medical Record. However, there is a merge field for this field specifically called AlreadySpayedNeutered. Please use that field in your documents. You can access the Merge Field document here.
Where to Update Sterilization Status for Wellness Appointments
You can change the Sterilization Status of an animal from the following locations
- Appointment/Checkout page: Located on the Treatment Sheet tab is a “Sterilization Status” box which you can click Update on to make changes.
- Patient Flow: on the right hand side of the Treatment tab there is a Sterilization Status box that can be updated.
- Online Appointment Queue: When you’re approving appointments, it may be necessary for some reason or another to change the sterilization status of the animal. You can do that by clicking the blue Edit button and changing the status.
