Encounters

The encounter connects the scheduled visit to patient, clinician and visit type. Scheduled date identifies the appointment, while start date and end date describe the care interval when recorded. Status distinguishes Scheduled, Arrived, in progress, awaiting review, Completed and Cancelled. Coordinator and Veterinarian can therefore discuss the same visit without treating an appointment as completed treatment.

Encounter State Board provides a kanban view of encounters. The Business Overview page brings encounter flow together with assigned clinical work and specialty records awaiting review. Use the visit state to decide the next permitted action, while checking the actual consent and clinical authority required by the admission workflow.

• Scheduled context. Coordinator resolves the patient and clinician before arranging the visit. That encounter becomes the operational reference for animal patient records. Before clinical care begins, check the consent, clinical privilege and effective patient coverage.
• Admission checks. The admission workflow requires purpose-specific Signed consent, a clinician identity resolved through the staff member’s linked user account and Active care-team coverage. Missing or withdrawn consent and unprivileged actors block the non-emergency path.
• Clinical handoff. Veterinarian documents the visit before it reaches awaiting review. A licensed Clinical Reviewer examines the clinical evidence and decides whether the encounter can become Completed. The review decision remains distinct from recording a vaccination or billing a service.

Agree how visit type is entered and how the practice interprets the scheduled, started and ended dates. Agree the appointment-request channel and how Coordinator resolves it into the right scheduled visit. Rehearse rescheduling with the clinical team before wider use.

Map clinician to the correct staff record and its linked user account. Rehearse the care-team assignment for the patient and the applicable clinical privilege. A clinician’s inclusion in the schedule must not grant access by itself. Coordinator owns admission preparation; Veterinarian owns clinical documentation; Clinical Reviewer owns the completion decision under the review authority selected during configuration.

Start with Milo’s Scheduled encounter and the required consent. Admit the patient only after the workflow resolves the permitted actor and access coverage, then check the Arrived state. Begin care, record the required documentation and inspect the move into awaiting review. Ask Clinical Reviewer to decide whether the evidence supports completion.

Repeat without the Signed consent. The workflow should block the non-emergency path, leaving the problem visible for Coordinator to resolve. Repeat with documentation omitted and verify that care cannot continue through a successful-looking handoff. Review start date and end date alongside status, and check that the licensed review decision is complete.

A cancelled appointment remains distinguishable through Cancelled. Do not infer refund processing or clinical completion from cancellation. Where a visit is rescheduled, agree how staff retain the relevant encounter context and prevent the animal record from being attached to the wrong visit.

• Encounter schedule — Review scheduled date and the recorded start date and end date alongside patient, clinician and current state.
• Encounter State Board — Follow the published visit-state board across admission, care and review.
• Encounters Awaiting Review — Focus the review handoff on encounters at awaiting review.

Follow admission and clinical review, then hand completed care to billing and reconciliation.