Add a new patient

Set a value in the Contact via drop-down menu next to the patient’s contact numbers.

Tick Consent to SMS reminder if your practice sends appointment reminders by SMS and the patient has indicated consent to receive SMS messages from your practice. See Send SMS reminders to patients for more information.

A photo record of patients for visual identification can be useful, particularly if your practice allows arriving patients to self-check in. You must have an existing scanned or captured image file to import.

1. Open the New Patient or Edit Patient demographic screen.
2. Click the Patient Photo box in the top right. Browse to the photo you want to import and click Open. The photo will be displayed in a preview window.
3. Click Save. The photo will be loaded into the photo area.
4. Click Save to save the photo to the patient demographic.

Bp Premier will try to save the photo in the original format. However, if the format is not recognised, the photo will be saved as a .jpg file. The file is resized according to the dimensions set in Setup > Preferences > General > Resize Patient Photo if larger than Width x Height. The default size is 200 x 200.

The photo is also displayed in the top right of the patient record. You can also:

• insert a photo into a template or document in the word processor
• include a photo when exporting patient records to XML or HTML.

You will need an active internet connection to verify HI and Medicare numbers.

To verify a Health Identifier value, click Lookup. Bp Premier will connect to the My Health service and attempt to validate the HI.

To verify a Medicare number, populate the Medicare No., IRN, and Expiry fields and click Medicare/DBA eligibility check. Bp Premier will connect to Medicare and attempt to validate the Medicare number.

Select a provider from the Usual doctor dropdown. Tick Deny access to other users. No other Bp Premier users will be able to view the patient's record.

In an emergency, confidential patient records can be accessed using the Emergency Patient Access tool available from the Database tab of the Configuration screen. See Understanding confidentiality and patient notes for more information.

You can designate a patient to be the ‘Head of Family’ for one or more other patients. When practice staff finalise an account for a member of the family, such as a minor, the staff member can select 'Head of family' from the Bill to field and automatically bill to the patient’s designated head of family.

To automatically add a new patient to a family, click F2 to open the Open patient screen, search for the head of family, and click Add to family. The New patient screen will open with address, phone number, and Medicare number fields already populated.

You can also link a patient’s Next of Kin and Emergency contact to the patient’s Head of Family to reduce data entry. When linked, any change to the head of family will also update the patient’s next of kin and emergency contact.

Set the head of family

1. From the New patient screen, click Set next to the Head of family field.



2. From the Select patient screen, search for and select the patient to be this patient’s head of family. Click Select.

Set the next of kin

1. From the New patient screen, click Set next to the Next of kin field. The Next of kin screen will appear.



2. The Next of kin options are:
   • Complete the contact details. Manually entered details do not need to be a current patient.
   • Tick Use Head of family details to load the patient’s head of family contact information into the screen. This field is only enabled if the patient has a head of family defined. If you select this option, changing the patient’s head of family will not automatically update the next of kin.
   • Tick Link to Head of family to load the patient’s head of family contact information into the screen. This field is only enabled if the patient has a head of family defined. If you select this option, changing the patient’s head of family will automatically update the next of kin.
3. Click Save to return to the New patient screen.

Set the emergency contact

1. From the New patient screen, click Set next to the Emergency contact field. The Emergency contact screen will appear.



2. The emergency contact options are:
   • Complete the contact details. Manually entered details do not need to be a current patient.
   • Tick Link to Head of family to load the patient’s head of family contact information into the screen. This field is only enabled if the patient has a head of family defined. If you select this option, changing the patient’s head of family will automatically update the emergency contact.
   • Tick Link to next of kin to load the patient’s next of kin contact information into the screen. This field is only enabled if the patient has a next of kin defined. If you select this option, changing the patient’s next of kin will automatically update the emergency contact.
3. Click Save to return to the New patient screen.

If a patient no longer uses your practice, tick Inactive on the patient's demographics. The patient record will no longer appear for selection in general patient lists, unless the Show inactive patients option is ticked. Untick the Inactive checkbox to reactivate the patient record for use in Bp Premier.

If a patient is deceased, tick Deceased, select the Date of death, and click Cause to enter a cause of death. The patient record will no longer appear for selection in general patient lists, unless the Show deceased patients option is ticked. On rare occasions, your practice may need to access a patient's past history or export the deceased patient's record.

Distinguishing active and inactive patients

In the Open Patient and Allocate Patient screens, inactive and deceased patients are highlighted to distinguish the record from active patients. This helps prevent reports being allocated to inactive patients, for example.

Select an account type from the Usual account dropdown on the right hand side. When a visit from the patient is finalised, the Account Type field will default to the type selected here.

At the bottom of the patient demographics, read-only fields indicate the creation and last updated dates for the patient record. This allows staff to see how long a patient has been attending the practice, and when and by whom the record was last updated. For example, your practice might have a policy of confirming contact details every twelve months.

Note: A Created by value of 'Practice' indicates that the record was imported or updated externally to Bp Premier.