The Patient Demographics window in the Patient Chart is one of the most important tools you have at hand to foster a personal relationship with your patient and improve medical billing workflows.
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The Patient Demographics feature allows you to store all patient identifying information in one place.
With the additional fields and selection options added in 2022 you can now store even more information in specified fields for all of your patients. The upgraded Clinical Profile view will also allow you to see the most critical pieces of information at a glance; without needing to open the full demographics window.
The Patient Demographics feature allows you to improve healthcare related workflows, enhance communication and streamline your business needs. You can store all of your patients' demographics information in one place to allow you to make crucial healthcare and treatment decisions based off of each patient's information.
Within Elation, various demographics fields also assist you with with different workflows and facilitate the use of different features. Please review the
Tips for using various demographics fields section for more details.
All available demographics fields are visible below.
- User Tips:
- The "Full name" and "Pronouns" fields are only available after you have created the patient's chart.
- Once the chart is created, an Elation patient chart ID number will appear at the top of the demographics window. This allows you to reference specific patient charts for your practice without having to reference PHI.
Read the following articles to learn more about managing the following demographics fields:
This is what the Clinical Profile view looks like for patient demographics. The patient's preferred full name (ex. Danny Jones) will display at the top of the chart and their legal full name (ex. Donald Jones) will display in the Additional Information section.
Here is a legend of all of the possible details that will display in the clinical profile if the corresponding fields are filled in and the corresponding icons for those fields.
- User Tip: Hover your mouse cursor over the icons to learn what each icon means.
Legal Name vs. Full Name
- Legal Name= the patient's name as displayed on all government issued documents such as their Social Security Card or Passport
- Full Name= the name the patient wishes to be called that is different from their legal name
Pronouns
What does the patient want to be referred by when you are not using their name?
- He/Him/His
- She/Her/Hers
- They/Them/Theirs
- Option Not Listed
Sex at birth
This field is usually used to designate the patient's sex at birth. We recommend storing the patient's legal sex as designated on government issues documents if you bill insurance companies.
- Female
- Male
- Intersex/other
- Unknown
Gender
How the patient identifies themselves
- Woman
- Man
- Transgender woman / trans feminine
- for patients who were assigned male at birth but identify with femininity
- Transgender man / trans masculine
- for patients who were assigned female at birth but identify with masculinity
- Non-binary / genderqueer / gender fluid
- for patients who may fluctuate gender expressions over their lifetime or express multiple various gender markers at the same time
- Two spirit
- for patients who identifies as having both a masculine and feminine spirit
- Option not listed
- Prefer not to say
SSN (Social Security Number)
You can now choose to turn on a feature that allows you to mask the patient's Social Security Number when viewing patient demographics. When this feature is turned on, the Social Security Number will be hidden until you click the "unhide" button to view it.
- If you would like this feature turned on for your practice, have an Admin Level User in the practice click the "I need help" -> "Contact Elation Support" button to ask a member of the Support Team to turn this feature on for you.
Sexual Orientation
Which gender(s) is the patient sexually attracted to?
- Asexual
- Bisexual
- Gay
- Lesbian
- Straight
- Queer
- Option Not Listed
- Prefer Not to Say
Legal gender marker
The designation of an individual's sex on a birth record or other government issued document
- (F)= Female
- (M)= Male
- (X)= Nonbinary (a gender that is not exclusively male nor female)
- Unknown
Patient Contact
The mobile phone and email address stored in this section is used for the following patient engagement features:
Patient Address
This field is required for prescribing medications, (especially controlled substance medications) and ordering lab tests (especially
electronic lab ordering).
Insurance
If you bill a patient's insurance company for services rendered, we recommend storing the patient's primary, secondary or tertiary insurance information in the Insurance section of the patient demographics. Learn more about storing insurance information in the
Patient Demographics Guide- Managing patient insurance.
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Important Note: If you are using a Practice Management System (PMS) integration with Elation, we recommend reviewing your PMS User Manual for the recommended workflow for entering patient insurance information. For example, not all PMS integrations support Tertiary Insurance information syncing.
Pharmacies
The preferred pharmacies entered in this section will facilitate sending prescriptions electronically to pharmacies from Elation.
Provider Information
The
Provider assign in practice field determines which provider in the practice the patient will be assigned to in the
administrative reports. This field also determines which provider is assigned drafted orders when staff assist with drafting prescriptions, orders and referrals.
To create a new patient chart:
- Go to the Practice Home page and click on the "New Chart" button in the gray navigation bar.
- Fill in the patient's demographics details- especially the required fields of legal first name, legal last name, date of birth, sex at birth and Provider assigned in practice
- User Tips:
- If there is only one provider in the practice, the Provider assigned in practice will always default to that provider's name.
- If you are provider creating a patient chart, the Provider assigned in practice will default to your own name regardless of how many providers there are in the practice.
- If you are a staff creating a patient chart in a multi-provider practice, the Provider assigned in practice will default to the name of the provider you set as your Default physician under "Settings" >> "User Settings".
- click "Create & Open Chart" or "Create Chart" when done.
Will Patients see their "Full Name" in any communications?
Yes, Patients will see their "Full name" displayed in all of the following Patient facing communications and forums:
- Patient Passport
- Booking Site
- Appointment reminders and confirmations
- Patient Forms
- Patient invoice communications
- Membership communications
- SMS (text message) Opt-In requests
Can I search for a patient in the EHR using their "Full Name"?
Yes, you can search for a patient using their full name, in addition to their legal name. For example, if the patient’s legal name is “Brian Walter Mills” but their full name is “Bobby Mills”, searching for “Bobby” will return a match for “Brian Walter Mills”.
Next Step
Familiarize yourself with the available demographics fields and collect and store essential data for your patients!
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