In a multi-location practice, duplicate patients are usually created accidentally, as a single patient might visit different locations of the same practice. Using the Patient Merge feature, multi-location practices can identify duplicate patient profiles across locations and merge them into a single profile.
Check out this video for a quick walkthrough.
Let's get started!
Topics Covered
Set Permissions for Patient Merge
Only users with the appropriate permissions under their profile can perform a patient merge.
To set permissions for patient merge, perform the steps below.
Navigate to the System Menu > select Practice Settings > Administration > Profiles.
Click Manage Permissions for the selected profile.
- Select the Patient section from the left.
- Under General and Patient Information, checkmark the 'Check for Duplicate Patients' and Merge Patient/Mark as Duplicate permission.
- Click Save.
Merge Two Patients
- Select the patient using the Global Search Bar.
- To check for duplicate patient profiles, click Check for Duplicate Patients.
- When the system has identified a duplicate profile with identical First Name, Last Name, and Date of Birth, it will be displayed under the Duplicate Patients section.
- You can directly merge the two patient profiles or mark it as a duplicate.
- If there are no duplicate patients, a green message will state 'No duplicate patients found'.
- To manually search for a duplicate patient profile, use the drop-down below.
- Select the intended patient profile.
If you prefer not to merge two patient profiles, you can mark the source profile as a duplicate instead. Marking a profile as duplicate will only mark it for identification without transferring any data. To do this:
- Click Mark Duplicate.
- To switch the source and destination profiles, click Swap in the Mark as Duplicate pop-up.
- After confirming the correct source and destination profiles, click Mark as Duplicate.
To merge two identical patient profiles:
- You may notice light yellow boxes highlighting the information that differs between the two patient profiles.
- The information in white are identical information.
- If you find that both patient profiles refer to the same individual, click Merge Patient to combine them.
| Note: The patient that was used to check for duplicate profiles will be the Destination Patient. |
- You will find the Source Patient and Destination Patient listed on the Merge Patient modal.
- If you need to swap the source and destination patient, click Swap.
- To continue, click Merge.
On the Confirm Action modal, please review the data carefully before you click Confirm to proceed.
| Note: The merge process is permanent and irreversible. After completion, only the destination patient record will remain active. |
- You will see a message on the destination patient's profile stating 'Patient Merge validation in Progress.'
- The merge process will take a few minutes to complete.
- Once the validation is done, the two patients will be merged.
- The destination patient will remain active and accessible, while the source patient will be archived and rendered inactive.
- The source patient's profile will display a Merged tag.
- Click on the patient hyperlink to view the source or destination patient.
- To view the archived patients, click Archived Patients button the destination patient's profile.
- You can view Merged and Duplicated patients on the Archived Patients pop-up.
Types of Data Merged from Source to Destination Patient
- Patient data such as demographics, treatment history, allergies, conditions, medications, treatment plans, documents, etc., will be merged from the source patient to the destination patient.
- Certain data such as accounting transactions, claims, imaging data, patient flags, Correspondence and implant tracker data will not be merged.
- To view what data will be copied or transferred and what will not get transferred, click View Merge Details on the Check for Duplicate pop-up.
Check Why the Merge Validation Failed
Merge Eligibility Criteria
Patients will not be eligible for merging if they have unresolved issues such as the following:
- Unpaid codes
- Active claims
- Active ortho plans
- Active general payment plans
- Being a responsible party for another patient
- Future appointments
- Unapplied credits
If any of the above non-eligibility criteria are met, the merge validation will fail.
If a patient merge validation has failed, you will see an yellow message stating 'Patient Merge validation failed'.
Click View Details to view the reason why the merge validation failed, and take the appropriate action based on the information provided.
Practices can use this simple guide to learn how to successfully merge duplicate patient profiles in CareStack.