17.5.1. Providing Copies of Medical Records

*Medical Records there are two ways that clients can get copies of their medical records. The first way is they call you, and you simply send them a copy. You can send them a copy in one of three ways. The medical record can email, texted, or downloaded to your computer and emailed using your own email provider. The second way is that you can put a link on your website where clients verify their identity and order copies of the medical record to be texted to them or emailed to them. In terms of the medical record, this can be the complete history of the patient, or it can be the take-home document that was provided to them from their last visit only.

Providing Medical Records and Copies of Take-Home Paperwork

It is most efficient to put the link on your website that lets clients order these by themselves. This requires no staff time. However, it should be noted that if clients choose the option to be texted, your clinic will be charged five cents per outgoing text. So, for example, if they choose to be texted a secret code that they can put in to verify their identity, that’s five cents. And then, if they choose again to have the medical records texted to them, that can be another five cents. You are not charged for texts that they send you. Not all clients will choose to verify their identity via text. Some will choose to receive the code via email. Others will also choose to receive the medical records via email. In this case, there would be no charge at all for providing them with the medical record. Even though there may be a small fee associated with sending these records when the client chooses to have a text, it will require no staff time, which you would have to pay for if they called you and spoke to someone on the phone. There is no way to turn off the texting part of it. Since they may not have an email, they need to be provided a way to receive the verification code via text.

When your clients click the link, this is what they will see:

Ordering medical records online

They will be texted or emailed a code. This is how HQ verifies their identity. They have 10 minutes to put in the code and click submit.

Code email

Once they put in the code, the system will pull up all animals associated with that phone number. Note: animals must be in a checked-out status to pull up. The list of animals is organized by the most recent animal first. They are able to select one or more animals from this list.

Medical records list of animals

The clients can then select whether or not they want the paperwork from the most recent visit only or the full medical record, which includes the treatment sheets from all previous visits. They can then also indicate if they would like the document emailed to them or texted to them.

Sending medical records options

*At this point the only documents that can be obtained through the Medical record request system are custom templates or the official “Medical Record.” HQ’s other built in templates are not available for the client to request. These other HQ templates can still manually be sent but are not part of the online record request.
Your custom template for take home paperwork should be an all-in-one that includes owner & animal, notes, services, test results, and rabies information. Download the template from this section.

Read more about take home templates in SECTION 11.3 & 13.5 of the manual, here: https://clinichq.com/public/manual

Please reach back out if I can be of further assistance.

If they select the email option, they will get an email with links to the paperwork. Note: it will be necessary and HQ settings for you to go in and tag on spay/neuter or wellness appointments which are the take-home paperwork for each appointment type.

If they select the option for the take-home paperwork, it will pull a copy of your current take-home paperwork template.

Take Home Paperwork

!If you have different kinds of take-home paperwork based on different factors like species, owned, or community cat, what you will need to do is set up one generic take-home paperwork for medical records. It is not possible to have multiple types of take-home paperwork and for the system to know which exact piece of paper you physically handed to the client. We suggest using our “take-home paperwork templates to create one standardized “take-home” document for each appointment type. Download Template (follow link and open HQ Templates.)

However, if the client chooses the full medical record, they will receive a medical record that has the first page is a summary of previous visits and a treatment sheet for each visit. This is the same medical record as when you go to the client profile and select medical record.

Medical Record

It looks like this.

Medical Record page 1

Digital Treatment Sheet added to the Medical Record

Sending Medical Records From Within HQ

To send medical records from within HQ, find the client and go into the client profile. You then select the animal tab, actions drop-down button, and medical record.

Sending medical records

Here you will be presented with three options. You can email the record, text the record, or download the record to your computer. You have the option of emailing or texting the record to more than one person. Note: we are charged a five-cent text every time you text it.

Medical recording sending options

Steps to put the link on your website

1. The first thing that you need to do is to go to your templates and tag your spay/neuter take-home paperwork and your wellness paperwork as “take-home paperwork.”

Take Home Paperwork Tag

2. Go to https://clinichq.com/app#/settings/medical-record and copy and paste the link onto your website. You can easily attach it to a button on your website, such as “medical records.”

Example of order button

How Does It Work for When You Have More Than One Clinic?

You will have the same link for all clinics. The one link represents all of your clinics. No matter which of your clinics the patient was treated at, it will pull the medical records from any of your clinics.
Each profile must have Call/Text Add-on enabled.

How Do I Make This Work?

To see what you need for setup, please jump to this section.