Alternate Plan Items - Add/Manage Custom Recommendations and Plans

Overview

Alternate Plan Items let you document non-prescription treatments, like supplements, IV therapy, or lifestyle recommendations, directly in the Plan section of an encounter note.

Details

When to use Alternate Plan Items

Use Alternate Plan Items for anything that is not a prescription medication, does not require a lab or imaging order, and is not an administered vaccine. This includes supplements, IV therapy, lifestyle recommendations, and other non-prescription treatments.

Alternate plan should not be used for:

• Compounded medications, which would instead be added to the medications list in order to be able to be formally prescribed (and eRxed).
• Specialty orders, which would instead be added to the Orders/ Labs list.
• Referrals that would be sent to a single specific outside provider or facility. Instead, you would add a Referral (or various specific types of referrals) to the Orders/ Labs list. And then select the specific outside provider or facility when sending a referral order for a patient.

 

Types of Alternate Plan Items

Alternate Plan Items categories are customizable to fit your practice needs. There are two key alternate plan concepts:

Formal Prescribing Modules - special types of treatment plan recommendations/ orders/ documentation that have structured fields associated with them (some of which may be for internal use/ not shown to the patient), in addition to an area for free text patient-facing information

• Supplement (system default)
• IV Therapy
• Injections
• Pellet Therapy
• Tinctures

Custom Free Text Recommendations - Common Action Types (categories) include:

• Diet/Nutrition Recommendations
• Exercise Plans/Recommendations
• Lifestyle Prescriptions
• Follow up Instructions 

Add a New Alternate Plan Item

1. Navigate to Admin > Manage > Alternate Plan Options.
2. Click '+ Create New Plan Option'.
3. Choose or create an Action Type (category) and enter the item details including name and description

The Description fields is shared with the patient when you prescribe the Alternate Plan Item. You will be given the option to edit this information before you add it to the Plan for a particular patient. You may want to enter default/generic text here that you modify when prescribing it for a particular patient.
 

Prescribing Alternate Plans

In an encounter note, hover over the plan block to select an Alternate Plan category

Select a category to bring up a search bar to search for and prescribe an item of that type from your database. You may edit the ordering/ administration./ dosing information and instructions to the patient before adding it to the Plan. 

Dosing Profiles

Supplements, IV Infusions, Injections, Pellets Therapy, and Tinctures are special types of Alternate Plan Items that have dosing profiles associated with them, rather than just the text Description. You will be given the option to create the default dosing profile when you first add a new Supplement or IV Infusion or above the Alternate Plan Name when you click on an item in your database to edit it. Alternately, you can check a box at the bottom of the dosing window when prescribing an item to save those settings as a new default dosing profile. By default, the Instructions in the dosing profile will pull from the Description, unless you save different text in the Instructions.