Patient profiles have the option to add patient contacts - persons identified as the patient's primary or emergency contact, next of kin, or related through other familial or social relationships.
Contacts are important to have on file, especially if you have patients who cannot manage their appointments or payments, such as child patients, dependants or animals. Patient contacts are usually assigned to parents, guardians, spouses, relatives, employers or pet owners.
In Halaxy, patient contacts can:
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Receive reminders and communications for the patient
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Pay and/or be assigned as the default payer for the patient's invoices
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Be added in CC or BCC fields for emails to patients
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Be set as a Medicare claimant to receive rebates on behalf of the patient
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Be assigned to multiple patients (such as a parent with multiple children).
When a contact is added to a patient's profile, a separate profile is created for the contact.
To access the contact's profile, under the patient profile's Contact Details section, click the contact's name.
Tip
Do you only need a patient's contact for billing and communication purposes? Set the contact's profile type as Contact Only, which removes clinical features and only contains contact and billing information.
Full or Contact Only profile types can be set as a patient contact, but Dependant profile types cannot. For more information, see related article: Set patient profile types for your practice
Note
A patient profile may have multiple contacts, but can assign only one primary contact.
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Open the patient profile.
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Under the Contact Details section, click Add Contact.
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In the pop-up, configure the following:
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Relationship: Select how the contact is related to the patient. (You can customise the options for this selection.)
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Contact Type: Select the category of this contact.
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Name / Phone / Email: Enter the contact's details. (If the contact is an existing patient, you can select their name in the dropdown. If the contact is new, select Add as a new contact.)
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Receive reminders and campaigns: Select if you want this contact to also receive communications that the patient receives.
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Share payment methods: Select to add the contact's payment details to the patient's profiles to pay for their invoices.
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Primary Contact (optional): Tick the checkbox to make this contact the primary contact. If a patient has multiple contacts, the primary contact can be assigned to be the default payer for the patient's invoices.
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Contact Notes (optional): Enter any short notes for the contact, which appears as a tooltip next to the contact's name.
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Click Save.
You have added this contact to the patient profile.
To edit a patient contact, click the pencil icon beside their name. To remove a patient contact, click the
bin icon beside their name.
Tip
If the patient and contact are sharing payment methods, make sure to add the contact's payment details in the Funding tab of their profile.
Note
Can't find a contact's profile? Unless the contact is an existing patient, contacts do not appear in the Patient List. If you want to access contact's profile, you can access it through the patient's profile or you can run a patient report with Report Type filtered to Contact.
Caution
If you delete a contact who already has patient records linked to them, their relationship with the patient is only archived and hidden.
You can add your own options for patient contact relationships and deactivate any that you are not using. Active options are available for selection when you add patient contacts.
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Click Settings > General.
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Under Patient Profiles, next to Contact Relationships, click View All.
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In the pop-up, tick the Active checkbox for the terms you want to include as available options.
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(Optional) On the right column, add your own relationship terms and tick their checkbox to mark them Active.
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Click Save.
You can choose to bill a patient invoice directly to a contact, which addresses the invoice to the contact instead of the patient.
The invoice is now billed to the contact instead of the patient. When emailing the invoice, you can select to email it to the contact payer.
Tip
If you have patients who will never pay their own invoices (such as children, dependants or animals), you can set contacts to be the default payer for invoices.
When you add payment details to a contact's profile, you can also enable card sharing to use these details to process a patient's invoice. This allows you to process payments for a patient using a contact's card details, even if you are not billing the contact directly on the invoice.
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On the patient profile, next to the contact's name, click the
pencil icon.
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In the pop-up, ensure that Share payment methods is set to Enabled, then click Save.
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Open the patient's invoice and click Process Now. (Tip: Can't find this button? You need to add payment details to the contact's profile.)
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In the pop-up, for Payment Methods, select the contact's payment details. (If only the contact's payment details are available, it will automatically be selected.)
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Click Process.
The patient invoice has now been paid using the contact's payment details.
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