Patient Management

Drug allergy information is one of the most safety-critical fields in any patient record. Ceveta provides a dedicated drug allergies field on every patient profile where you can record known allergies and adverse reactions. This information is visible whenever a clinician views the patient, helping to reduce the risk of prescribing errors.

We recommend recording allergies using the generic drug name (e.g. “Penicillin” rather than a brand name) along with the nature of the reaction where known (e.g. “Penicillin — anaphylaxis”). If a patient reports no known drug allergies, it is good practice to explicitly record “NKDA” (No Known Drug Allergies) so that staff can distinguish between “no allergies” and “not yet asked”.

For broader medical history, you can use the clinical notes field (covered below) to record relevant past medical history, surgical history, or ongoing conditions. Many practices also use Ceveta’s document composer to create structured clinical assessment templates that capture medical history in a standardised format.

Every patient in Ceveta has an account balance that gives you a quick snapshot of their financial standing with your practice. This balance is displayed on the patient profile and can be used by your administrative team to identify patients with outstanding fees before their next appointment.

The account balance is particularly useful for practices that operate on a deposit or pre-payment model. For example, if a patient pays a deposit towards a procedure, the balance reflects the remaining amount owed. When invoices are raised and payments are recorded, the balance updates accordingly, giving everyone in the team visibility over which accounts need attention.

You can also use account balances as a filter when searching the patient directory, making it easy to generate a list of patients with outstanding balances for end-of-month follow-up.

Ceveta includes an internal notes field on every patient record. These notes are staff-only — they are never visible to patients through the patient portal or any shared documents. This makes them ideal for recording information that the clinical or administrative team needs to know but that is not appropriate for patient-facing correspondence.

Common Uses for Clinical Notes

• Communication preferences — “Patient prefers contact by email only. Do not call mobile during working hours.”
• Administrative flags — “Awaiting GP referral letter. Chase if not received by 15 March.”
• Billing reminders — “Excess of 150 applies to insurance policy. Collect from patient at appointment.”
• Clinical context — “Patient anxious about procedures. Allow extra time for consultations.”
• Medico-legal context — “Report requested by Smith & Co Solicitors. Ref: ABC-12345. Deadline 30 April.”

Because these notes sit directly on the patient record, any member of staff who opens the patient’s profile will see them immediately. There is no need to search through emails or separate note-taking tools.

Good data quality is the foundation of efficient practice management. Here are our recommendations for keeping patient records accurate and useful over time:

1. 1Capture complete details at registration. Ask for contact details, date of birth, NHS number, and insurance information at the point of first contact. It is far easier to collect this upfront than to chase it later.
2. 2Verify details at every appointment. Train your front-desk staff to confirm the patient’s address, phone number, and email at each visit. People move house, change phone numbers, and switch email providers more often than you might expect.
3. 3Record drug allergies explicitly. Always mark the allergy field — either with known allergies or “NKDA”. A blank allergy field is ambiguous and can be a patient safety risk.
4. 4Keep insurance details current. Insurance policies renew annually, and patients sometimes change providers. Check policy and membership numbers when a patient returns after a gap, and update the payor type if their funding arrangement has changed.
5. 5Use clinical notes for context, not clutter. Keep internal notes concise and relevant. Date your entries so the team can see when information was recorded. Remove or update notes that are no longer applicable.
6. 6Assign clinicians promptly. When a new patient is referred to a specific consultant, assign that clinician straight away. This ensures the patient appears in the correct clinician’s list from the outset and avoids orphaned records.
7. 7Audit your records periodically. Use the search and filter tools to identify records with missing information — for example, patients without an email address or those with a blank allergy field. A quarterly data quality review takes little time and pays dividends in smoother day-to-day operations.