Patient & Customer Management

The Patient & Customer Management addon looks after everything around the patient list. It gives you follow-ups that do not get forgotten, labels to group people by, a way to merge two files that belong to the same person, an import for the patient list you kept before, and switches for the sign-up and account area on your website. It is for the front desk and the owner: the people who ring patients back and keep the list clean.

Switching it on

Patient & Customer Management is a premium addon, so it has to be in your licence first.

1. Buy it with Buy this addon on its card on Admin → Addons. When the order is confirmed, the key comes down by itself at the next licence check; Collect purchases now under License → Addon keys fetches it at once. The addon is normally switched on as it arrives.
2. A key you got some other way goes in the Addon key box under License → Addon keys. Paste it and press Add the key.
3. If its card on Admin → Addons still says Disabled, press Enable.

On first start the addon creates five labels you can keep, rename or retire: VIP, Needs interpreter, Home visit, Payment plan and Do not call.

Where to find it

The addon's pages sit under Patients & Clinic in the sidebar: Follow-ups, Labels, Merge Files and Import. Its settings open from Admin → Addons → Settings.

The permissions, in the CRM group under Roles & Permissions, are See follow-ups, Create, complete and cancel follow-ups (which also covers labels), Merge two patient files and Import a patient list.

Follow-ups

Adding a follow-up

A follow-up is a reminder tied to one patient. On Follow-ups, the card Something to chase has:

• Patient: start typing a name, patient ID or phone number.
• What needs doing: for example Ring about the trial.
• Kind: Phone call, Ask them in, Send a message, Send a quote, Chase payment or Something else.
• By when: a week ahead to start with (see the settings).
• Whose job: one member of staff, or Anyone, and a Note.

Press Add it. The Follow-ups tab of a patient's file has an Add a follow-up button that opens this form with the patient filled in.

Working through the list

The list has four views, Due now, Coming up, Done and All, and Mine only narrows any of them to the follow-ups assigned to you. A date that has already passed is shown in red.

Each open follow-up has Call (dials the patient), +7d (pushes it back a week), Done and a cross to cancel it. Done also writes a note on the patient's file, so the next person can see it was handled.

On the day a follow-up falls due, the cron job sends a Follow-up due today notification to the person whose job it is, or to all staff. The dashboard shows a Follow-ups due card.

Labels

Labels → + Add a label. Each label has a Label (the name), a Colour, What it means (so everybody uses it the same way), an Order and a Status (In use or Retired). Keep the list short. A patient's labels appear as coloured tags at the top of the Follow-ups tab on their file.

Merge Files

The same person often ends up with two files, for example Md. Karim and Karim. Merge Files joins them.

Files that look like the same person lists pairs with the same mobile number (same number) or exactly the same name (same name). Nothing is merged by itself: choose B → A (keep A) or A → B (keep B). Otherwise use Merge two files by hand:

1. Search by name, patient ID or phone.
2. In the results, tick Keep beside the file you want to keep and Merge in beside the duplicate.
3. Press Merge them and confirm. This cannot be undone.

Appointments, hearing tests, fittings, sales, notes, follow-ups, repair jobs and labels move to the file you keep. Details it is missing (a second number, e-mail, address, date of birth, NID, photo) are taken from the duplicate, and the visits are added together. A note on the kept file records what was merged, and the duplicate is closed with a note saying where it went.

Import

1. Save your Excel list as CSV. The first row must be the column headings. Up to 5,000 rows go in at a time.
2. Choose Your CSV file and press Upload and look at it.
3. Under Which column is what, tell the panel what each column is, such as Name, Mobile, E-mail, Sex (male/female), Date of birth (YYYY-MM-DD), Age in years, Address, District or NID. One column must be the name.
4. Leave Test run — write nothing ticked and press Run it. You see how many files it Would add, how many are Already on file and how many were Skipped.
5. If that looks right, upload the file again, map it the same way, untick the test run and press Run it.

Anybody whose mobile number is already on file is left alone: the import adds, it never overwrites.

Sign-up and the patient's account

The patient's own area on your website (registering at /register and signing in at /my-account) is part of the core script; see Patients. This addon adds two switches in its settings, so you can close either door.

A visitor who registers gets a patient ID by SMS, and the staff get a Somebody registered on the website notification. The patient signs in with their patient ID and mobile number.

With this addon on, the account page also shows a Your details panel, asking the patient to ring you if something is wrong rather than open a second file.

Settings

Tips

• Add a follow-up whenever you promise to ring back. The promise is then on the dashboard of the person who made it.
• Run Merge Files once a month, before both duplicates collect records.
• Combine follow-ups with Hearing Aid Management trials and Notifications & Marketing reminders.