Patient Pre-Check In

NextPatient offers our digital check-in service which provides patients with the ability to complete much of the check-in process from anywhere through the comfort of their mobile phone or computer. A process which normally takes 5-10 minutes a patient in the office can now take however long is needed for the patient, though typically only a few minutes, but with the task completed and ready for their visit upon arrival with less processes for your staff.

Digital Check-In provides the following automations:

Driver’s license capture and direct storage into the patient record*
Insurance Card capture (front and back of primary card) and direct storage into the patient record**
Registration Policy Forms completion with digital signature and direct storage into the patient record. Common examples include HIPAA policy, Financial policy, and No Show policy.*
Basic Address and Contact Information captured and updated into the patient record.*
Extended demographics captured and updated into the patient record***

Monitoring Patients' Completion of Pre-Check In:

To monitor the completion of pre-check in for scheduled patients, authenticated users can visit https://nextpatient.co/admin and, if there are multiple locations available, select the correct site. From the home page, the upcoming, non-completed visits for today will be displayed. To view the status of future visits, switch to the ‘Today’s Patients' tab and use the date selector to view the correct date.

Once the desired date is set, the dashboard will display like this:

The first few columns will identify in-office or video visits, the appointment time, appointment status, the status of the Pre-Check In, and the patient name. Indicated by a clipboard icon, the status of the patients' Pre-Check In will be indicated by either a red circle with an X or a green circle with a check; the green circle represents 100% completion of all available steps and the red circle indicates that at least one component was not completed. To view more details, click on the patient's name.

Non-Completed Status Page:

The image above outlines which components of the check-in process were completed by the patient either recently for the current visit, on a preview visit, or, as seen above, from having certain elements in the practice management system⁺. If the patient completed one or more aspect on a previous visit, this screen will indicate on which visit it was completed. If the insurance or address/demographic details were updated more than 90 days ago, this screen will indicate when it was last completed and that it will be asked of the patient to update.

Completed Status Page:

The image above indicates that all elements have been completed. For consent forms, you can open and view the PDF here if needed. For Insurance, it will indicate if the patient is self-pay, and if not, there insurance will be listed here; many find that it is helpful to refer to this screen to add the insurance details into their practice management system. The confirmed or updated address/demographic data will be displayed, but for most integrated practice management systems, this will automatically update in the patient record.

Requesting Patients to Complete Check-In:

If a patient needs to complete check-in upon arrival, it is possible to send the URL to the patient manually⁺⁺ to request they complete the process on the spot. To send the URL, click ‘copy’ at the end of the Patient URL and then go down to the Text messages section, enter any necessary message to the patient so they understand what the link is for (unless they are aware you are sending them the link), paste the URL, and click Send.

Available for all integrated practice management systems except for Allscripts and CareCloud.
Insurance card image is saved into record. Details such as subscriber ID, insurance company, etc are not saved into structured data fields.
Extended demographics capture race, ethnicity, language, and emergency contact information and is currently only available for Athenahealth clients.
+Detection of driver’s license on file is available only with Athenahealth.
++Requires Two-Way Texting. See your account management.