Requiring Action Guide - Reviewing & signing requiring action items from the Practice Home or patient's chart

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Title Requiring Action Guide - Reviewing & signing requiring action items from the Practice Home or patient's chart

Body

Overview
- What is Requiring Action?
  - Requiring Action queues in the Practice Home
- What items typically appear in the Requiring Action queue and who can clear them?
  - Quick Reference Table
Workflow Instructions

Overview

What is Requiring Action?

The Requiring Action queue appears at the top of every patient chart and in the Practice Home. It collects all open items assigned to you that require your review or sign-off before they can be moved to the Chronological Record. Items remain in Requiring Action until the appropriate user takes the required action to clear them.

Requiring Action queues in the Practice Home

The Requiring Action queues in your Practice Home centralizes all of the items that require your attention in a single view. Queues with items will have a yellow number label and will display the number of items that require your attention within that queue. You can use the queues to:

Be the "To Do" lists for yourself or another office team member.
Send reminders to yourself or another office team member.
Manage your team and check for productivity by viewing their queues.

ℹ️ PREMIUM EHR & ADMIN USERS ONLY

To change who can sign off on items in these queues (for example, granting or revoking staff delegate privileges), an Admin Level User must make those changes in Settings → Admin Managed Delegates. If you do not see Admin Managed Delegates under Settings, you are either not an Admin or your practice does not have access to the Premium EHR features. Contact a practice manager with Admin privileges to request changes.

User-added image

What items typically appear in the Requiring Action queue and who can clear them?

Who can clear an item depends on both the item type and the user's account level:

Provider Level Users can sign off on most clinical items by default.
Staff Level Users can clear certain items (such as letters and some office messages) and can sign off on others only when a provider has granted them delegate permissions.
Authorized Delegates are Staff Level Users explicitly configured by a provider to sign on their behalf for specific item types.

ℹ️ NOTE
If you do not see a Sign Off button on an item, your user type or delegate permissions may not include sign-off access for that item type. See the Requiring Action & Open Items Queues article for troubleshooting steps.

Quick Reference Table

This table summarizes common requiring action items, where to find them, who can clear them, and how they are resolved.

Requiring Action Item Type	Practice Home Queue	Patient Chart Section	Who Can Clear	Required Action(s)	Optional Action(s)
Lab Result	Reports	Requiring Action	Provider Level Users - Can sign off on electronic lab results, even if they are assigned to a different provider. Staff Level Users - Can sign off if they have been delegated sign-off permissions by a provider.	Provider Level Users - Sign Off. Staff Level Users (with delegation) - Sign off on behalf of provider.	Click Sign Off & Send to patient or Sign Off & Send to provider to attach the report to a Patient Letter or Provider Letter.
Imaging Report	Reports	Requiring Action	Provider Level Users - Can sign off on imaging reports, even if they are assigned to a different provider. Staff Level Users - Can sign off if they have been delegated sign-off permissions by a provider.	Provider Level Users - Sign Off. Staff Level Users (with delegation) - Sign off on behalf of provider.	Click Sign Off & Send to patient or Sign Off & Send to provider to attach the report to a Patient Letter or Provider Letter.
Faxed Document	Reports	Requiring Action	Provider Level Users - Can sign off on faxed documents only if they are the assigned provider. Staff Level Users - Can sign off if they have been delegated sign-off permissions. If the document was filed with File on behalf of Provider checked, no sign-off is required and the document goes directly to the Chronological Record	Provider Level Users - Sign Off. Staff Level Users (with delegation) - Sign off on behalf of provider.
Office Message	Office Messages	Requiring Action / Outstanding Items	Provider Level Users - Can sign any Office Message thread, even if they are not a recipient. Staff Level Users - Can click Mark Complete only if the thread contains no Provider Level Users. Premium EHR users - May configure Staff Level Users as Office Message Delegates to sign on behalf of providers.	Provider Level Users - Sign Off. Staff Level Users (with delegation) - Sign off. Staff Level Users (when no providers are on the thread) - Mark Complete. Users part of an office message thread that was signed by a Provider - Acknowledge.
Refill Request	Rx Requests	Requiring Action	Provider Level Users - Can address non-controlled substance and controlled substance refill requests. Rx Delegates - Can only address non-controlled substance refill requests. ℹ️ NOTE Only providers with active EPCS credentials can address controlled substance refill requests. Rx Delegates cannot approve or renew controlled substance prescriptions.	Approve, Deny, or Renew
Unsigned Note	Draft Notes	Requiring Action	Provider Level Users - Can sign visit notes and other notes (phone/non-visit email). Staff Level Users - Can sign other notes (phone/non-visit email).	Sign or Sign & Close
Unsigned Order or Referrals	Draft Orders	Requiring Action	Provider Level Users - Can sign orders and referrals. Rx/Orders/Referrals Delegates - Can sign orders or referrals on behalf of providers.	Sign or Sign & Close
Unsigned Letter	Draft Letters	Requiring Action	Any user can sign Patient Letters and Provider Letters.	Sign & Send
Patient/Provider Letter messages	Patient Letters, Provider Letters	Requiring Action	Provider; Staff Delegate (for Referrals)	Reply, Sign, or Acknowledge	Click End Conversation to close the thread.

💡 USER TIPS

If you need to configure delegate permissions for staff, an Admin Level User can set up Staff Delegates in the practice settings. See the Staff Permissions & Staff Delegates Guide for details.
For more details about what other items can be found in specific inboxes, see the Checking for items that require your attention in the inboxes section below.

Workflow Instructions

Using quick actions at the top of your Practice Home

Checking for new items in the Practice Home

Click the Refresh button to update your queue/inboxes to see if there are any new items you need to address without leaving the Practice Home page.

Launching multiple patient charts at once from Practice Home

Open up to 10 patient charts from each inbox at once by clicking Launch first ... patients. A new browser tab will open for each patient chart so you can review items that need your attention.

ℹ️ NOTE
If new tabs do not open, it's most likely due to a Pop-up Blocker. If you see an icon with a little red "x" to the side of your web browser, click on the icon and select the "Always allow pop-ups from..." option.

Setting your Practice Home display order preference

Set your preference on whether you want to see the newest or oldest items first in each inbox by selecting from the Showing dropdown. Your preference will be saved as you navigate across the inboxes, and it will be saved each time you open the Practice Home page on the same web browser.

Specifying inbox/queue options

Queue Options.png

Changing your inbox/queue view

Check for requiring action items in other office members' queues by clicking the View Queue For: dropdown men, finding the member you would like to view queue for and clicking on their name.

You also have the option to view the queue for:

Everyone
All Physicians
All Staff

Checking for items that require your attention in the inboxes

This table describes the items that may appear in the various Practice Home inboxes. Certain item types can be addressed from the Practice Home directly while others will require you to click on the patient's name to open the patient's chart to view the requiring action item.

Inbox	What items will appear here?	Additional details
Urgent	Office messages or patient reports addressed to you AND marked as 'Urgent' by a member of your practice. "Stat" reports addressed to you from interfaced lab or radiology vendors. Failed electronic prescriptions that you attempted to send. Failed electronic lab orders that you attempted to send. Failed faxed Letters/Referrals that you attempted to send.
Office Messages	Any office messages addressed to you directly or addressed to a user group that you are in (for example the "Staff (Group)" which has all the staff members in the practice in it)	Click the Filter by dropdown in the Office Message inbox to further narrow the inbox by: All messages to Self Messages addressed to you directly Messages addressed to any groups you are part of Click here to learn more about the office message feature.
Rx Requests	Electronic prescription refill requests addressed to you.	Click here for more details about electronic refill requests.
Reports	Patient reports from the Fax Inbox or interface that are assigned to you.	Click the Filter by dropdown in the Reports inbox to further narrow the inbox by the report category. Click Re-assign to reassign the report to another provider or delegate.
Reminders	Notifications from unopened letters or referral orders you created.
Patient Letters	Messages sent to you by patients through Patient Passport.	Click here for more information about responding to Patient Letters.
Provider Letters	Messages sent to you by other providers through their Elation account or the Provider Portal.
Draft Notes	Any unsigned visit notes or other notes (phone, non-visit, email) assigned to you.
Draft Letters	Any incomplete letters that were assigned to you or that you created.
Draft Orders	Any incomplete prescription, test orders or referrals that were assigned to you or that you created.

Clearing requiring action items

To clear requiring action items, review the item and take the appropriate action needed to complete or address the item. Certain item types can be addressed from the Practice Home directly, such as Office Messages and Reports, while others will require you to click on the patient's name to open the patient's chart to view the requiring action item, such as Refill Requests or draft notes. See the Quick Reference Chart at the top of this article for details about how to clear certain requiring action items.

Next Step

Check your Practice Home for outstanding Requiring Action items!

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