Finding patients in Practice Works

[Carla]

We updated to version 10.1.6.317 in Practice Works and since then, the Patient Pick List and Phone Inquiry has changed - for the worse! Now we can't look up patients by Social Security #'s.  We have several patients with the exact same name and we need another way to find them in the system other than just he name. Addresses change frequently - so that is not an answer to our problem. Searching by DOB would also be helpful. Can this be added please??

Also, is there a way to get the "old look" of the Patient Pick List and Phone Inquiry back?? 

[tsalcido]

I understand the challenge you are expressing for losing the ability to search by SSN. I have a possible solution. I wanted to share the why this may have changed. 

If you look at the 2012 ADA Form for the patient it showed SSN of ID# in Box 15

2012 ADA FORM

Now the new 2019 ADA Form reads differently in Box 15. Making SSN optional to collect.  It now reads ID (Assigned by Plan) which could still mean SSN depending on the plan and insurance company. 

2019 ADA FORM

Since so many office are no longer collecting SSN it was an easy choice to remove it in the search making way for a newer look. 

Since we cannot change the look back to the previous version, you do have an option for search if you are not using it. CHART # on the clipboard.

This comes up in our picklist and phone inquiry search as a sort option.

In my old office we put in patient's first names or when we bartered their trade in chart #. 

I hope that helps give you something to work with until your request is heard.

[sonyap]

I work for two offices and I noticed this difference between the two (one is 10.1.something and the other is 9.1.0).  The second office is getting ready to implement online bill-pay and because there isn't a way to assign account numbers, we were going to use a portion of the SSN as an identifier for the patient to create an acct.  Because I knew we wouldn't be able to view that any longer, we added that to the reasons we are still on v9.  I have requested many times to be able to read/see ALL changes that will happen with an update PRIOR TO loading it. Until that happens, we will stick with what we know and forgo any benefits to avoid the headaches that sometimes come with it.