About Visits

A visit in Vetspire is designed to be a container for a patient’s appointment/encounter, NOVASheets, notes, documents, and other components of the medical record that are updated during their time in your hospital’s care. Whether the patient is in the hospital or out in the field, staying for multiple days or discharged the same day they are admitted, the visit makes it easy to see everything associated with the patient and the care they receive during their time spent with your team.

How It Works

• A visit can be started from the appointment tile on the Schedule calendar or on Flow.

• Each visit is assigned a unique ID in the format of [Patient ID]-[patient’s visit number], such as 1234567-01.

• All components of a patient’s medical record that are opened/updated during a patient’s active visit are associated with the Visit ID, including encounters, NOVASheets, notes, client communications, diagnostic results, tasks, uploads, and rDVM records. These display in a collapsible drawer on the timeline of Patient Chart.

• You can add components of the patient’s medical record to the visit and remove components from the visit.

• You can pin specific components of the visit to the top of the visit record, so that they continue to display in the visit drawer on the Patient Chart timeline when it is collapsed.

• The Email Full Medical Records window is accessible from the visit action menu in Patient Chart (Share Visit Record), enabling the downloading and sharing of all visit components. The start and end date fields in the Email Full Medical Records window automatically populate with the start and end dates of the visit.

Start a Visit

You can start a visit from Schedule or Flow.

Schedule: Select Start Visit in the appointment details to navigate to the encounter.

Flow: Select Check In if the appointment has not yet been updated to the Checked In status. When the appointment tile is in the Checked In column, select Start Visit. The system will then navigate you to the encounter, and the appointment tile will move to the In Progress column.

Video: Schedule an Appointment & Start the Patient’s Visit

About Visit Details

Once you start the visit (from Schedule or Flow), or when you start the encounter from Patient Chart, you can add encounter-specific visit details via the encounter footer to easily track who is caring for the patient and where they are staying.

1. Select the first tab of the encounter footer to open the Encounter Details window.

2. Select Care Team to expand the Care Team panel of the Encounter Details window.

3. List the Care Team Members and assign a Role to each user. The system supports up to five care team members.

   1. Select a Vetspire user in the Search for a Care Team Member drop-down field.

   2. Select a role for each user in the Assign a role drop-down field.

4. (Optional) Select the Ward and Kennel where the patient will be staying. The ward/kennel names display in Patient Banner until the encounter is signed and closed.

The system saves your changes automatically when you close the Encounter Details window.

Discharging a Patient and Ending the Visit

You can separately mark a patient as ‘Ready for Discharge’ and end a visit. You can also discharge the patient and end the visit at the same time to proceed to checkout.

How It Works

• A patient’s encounter does not have to be signed in order for the patient to be marked as ‘Ready for Discharge,’ giving you the flexibility to complete encounter notes after the patient has left your practice.

• Marking a patient as ‘Ready for Discharge' does not end the visit in Vetspire. Additionally, marking a patient as ‘Ready for Discharge’ does not sign the patient’s encounter.

• Selecting End Visit & Discharge Patient does not finalize the client’s invoice. The client’s invoice (which contains all billable items from the visit) can be finalized from Patient Chart > Billing. From here, you can proceed to checkout to collect payment.

Mark Patient as ‘Ready for Discharge’

This feature is designed to help you see at-a-glance which patients are being discharged. When you mark a patient as ‘Ready for Discharge,’ the patient’s appointment tile moves to the Ready for Discharge column on Flow.

To mark a patient as ‘Ready for Discharge’:

1. Go to the patient’s chart and locate the visit in the Chart timeline.

2. Select the ellipsis to open the action menu for the visit, then select Mark Ready for Discharge.

End Visit and Discharge Patient

This option can be used when the patient is leaving your practice whether or not payment is collected at the time of service, allowing you to keep the visit details and financials separated if needed.

1. Go to the patient’s chart and locate the visit in the Chart timeline.

2. Select the ellipsis to open the action menu for the visit, then select End Visit & Discharge Patient.

The patient’s appointment tile then moves to the Checking Out column on Flow.

Checkout and End Visit

This option is designed to be used when the patient is leaving the hospital and payment is collected at the time of service.

1. Go to Patient Chart > Billing and select the client’s Open invoice for the patient’s visit.

2. Select Finalize to update the invoice to the Due status.

3. Select Checkout and End Visit. The appointment tile moves to the Checking Out column on Flow.

4. Collect payment as usual. (See our Collect Invoice Payment guide for more details.)

What happens when I end a visit?

• The visit banner turns from green to gray in Patient Chart to visually indicate that the visit has ended.

  

• The patient’s appointment tile moves to the Checking Out column on Flow.

• The patient’s associated invoice for the visit (including any billable treatments administered via a NOVASheet and during an encounter) is updated to the Due status.

• Ending a patient’s visit does not sign the patient’s encounter.

• The visit can be re-opened from the action menu (Re-open Visit).

  

• Re-opening the patient’s invoice for edits does not re-open the visit.

Video: Discharge Patient & End Visit