All SOAP notes live in the Visits tab in the patient's profile. If you click on that tab, there will be a box that is generated any time a patient has an appointment that was scheduled on the calendar. A SOAP note will always tie to an individual appointment.
You may notice various symbols or messaging on a SOAP note box. But what do they mean?
ChiroHD will flag various issues with a SOAP note that the office would need to address and/or fix if desired.
Below will break down each symbol, their meaning, and what actions should be taken.
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This just means that there is an appointment on the calendar for the patient, but a SOAP note is missing.
To resolve this, the provider needs to enter a SOAP note for that appointment.
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- This soap note has not been finalized
This means that a SOAP note was started on the SOAP notes screen, but it was saved as a draft. The system is providing a warning that this particular SOAP note needs to be finalized.
To resolve this, this can be done by either logging into the SOAP notes screen > clicking on the patient in the Draft Notes queue > finishing the SOAP note > clicking Finalize. This can also be done by clicking on the Visits tab in the patient profile > clicking on the SOAP note box for the appointment with the warning > Edit Note > finishing the SOAP note > clicking Finalize.
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- The appointment associated with this note is either canceled or in an invalid state
This means that an appointment was scheduled on the calendar, a SOAP note was started or finalized and therefore submitted into the visits tab, but then the appointment on the calendar was either marked as canceled or deleted after the fact.
To resolve this, the office needs to assess whether the SOAP note needs to be deleted as well, or if the appointment needs to be added back to the calendar. The office needs to figure out if the patient actually came in that day and the note needs to stay, or if the patient did not come in and the note needs to be deleted.
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- There are multiple soap notes attached to this appointment
This means that the patient had one appointment scheduled for the day, but multiple SOAP notes were submitted for the single appointment.
This may be an intentional submission by the office, and that is okay. The system is just warning you.
If the office wants to resolve this, they can go to the visits tab > click on the appointment box (the multiple SOAP notes will show) > highlight everything from the second SOAP note > copy > click on Edit note on the first soap note > paste > Finalize > click Delete Note on the SOAP note that was pasted into the main note.
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- There are multiple appointments scheduled for this day
This means that the patient has multiple appointments scheduled on the same day, and a SOAP note has been added.
It can be common for a patient to have multiple appointments scheduled on the same day. This is not an error message, this is just a warning to show to make sure the office is aware that there are multiple appointments for this patient so make sure SOAP notes are submitted for the correct appointment type.