OutSmart EMR Knowledgebase

System Updates

Create Your Account

Initial Setup Video

Update Jan 2023:  New account registrations now need a registration code.  Please see information below this video for more details.




Create a Practitioner or Staff Account – UPDATED JANUARY 2023

To create your new Practitioner or Staff OutSmart account, you must first receive a registration code or link from OutSmart Support or another practitioner or clinic member using OutSmart EMR.  Registration codes and links are sent via email.  (If you are a Patient, please read this article to learn how to setup your Patient Portal account.)

  • If you are joining a clinic that is already using OutSmart EMR, the clinic staff will send you a invitation to join by email.  Once you get the email invitation, click on the link within the email to create your OutSmart Account.
  • If you are creating an account from scratch and not joining an existing clinic using OutSmart EMR, then you will need to contact OutSmart Support at 1-888-507-0826 or by email at info@outsmartemr.com to request a registration link.

Check your spam if you are sent a registration link and you do not see it in your inbox.

When you click on the registration link in your email, you will be directed to the OutSmart EMR account registration page.  The registration code will be automatically entered for you.  Please fill out the rest of the fields (all fields are required) and ensure that the email address you enter is the same one where you received your registration link.

Create an Office / Clinic

When you login to your OutSmart account for the first time, you will be asked to either create a new Office, or to approve an invitation to join an existing Office.

If your email address has not been invited to join an office, you can only create a new office.

If you are an Admin or Medical Assistant to a practitioner, then you should make sure that you are only approving an invitation to join an Office, rather than creating a new Office.

If you are a Practitioner, then you can either create a new Office, or join an existing one, depending on your situation.

If your email address was invited to join an office, you will be prompted to either approve the invitation, or to add a new office.

Note: If you are supposed to be joining a clinic, but do not see an invitation to join the clinic when you log in to your account, ask the practitioner who is supposed to invite you to their clinic to re-send the invitation.  Once they have done so, log back in to your account and you will see the Approve Invitation link.

Accepting An Invitation To Join An Office / Clinic

When you log into your account, if there is an active invitation that has been extended to you, you will see the option to Approve the invitation.  Click on Approve, and you will be instantly connected to that Office / Clinic.

Creating A New Office / Clinic

When you log into your account as a Practitioner, you have the option of creating a new Office.  Click on the Create New Office link to begin the process.

This will open up the New Office Creation Page.  Make sure to enter information in all the fields in order to activate the Create Office button.  If you do not enter all the required information, the Create Office button will not be activated.

Note: If you do not have a website for the clinic, simply enter “www” for the website name in order to continue.

Once you have entered all the required information, click on the Create Office button to create your new Office.

Once all required fields are completed, you can click Save Details and Create Office.

Editing an Office Profile

The office Profile is accessible from the Main Navigation Menu, by clicking on Office:

Select Office from the main navigation menu to access the office profile.

Once in the Office Profile page you can edit your office address, contact information, and office logo.  The office logo is used on almost all printouts like invoices, treatment plans, product and IV labels, etc.

Creating Additional Offices

In OutSmart, you can have as many offices as you want associated with your account.  There is no charge for additional offices.  Here are some instructions on how to add additional offices to your account.

  1. If you are logged in to your account, click on your initials at the top right of the screen.  This will open up the Account Menu.
  2. In the Account Menu, click on Change Office.  This will bring you to the Office Selection Page.

    Click on your initials to the right of the Search Bar to open the Account Menu.

  3. On the Office Selection Page, click on the ‘+’ icon at the top right of the office options.  This will take you to the New Office Details Page.

    Click the + button to create a new office.

  4. Enter all your office details, and make sure all required fields are filled out.  A required field is marked by a red “X” next to it.
  5. Click on Save Details and Create Office button when you are done.

That’s it!

Purchase Your Subscription

If you have decided to use the advanced features of OutSmart EMR, then you will need to purchase a Subscription.  Purchasing a Subscription requires you to have already setup an account and created an Office.  If you have not yet done so, please follow the steps in the account creation and office creation help files before continuing with the steps outlined in this article.  In addition, if you are planning on inviting other practitioners and staff to your office, you should do that first as well.

Now that you have created your account and setup your first Office, you can setup your OutSmart Subscription.  Follow the information in this guide to purchase your subscription.

Complete your Office Profile and your Practitioner Profile

Completing your Office Profile and Practitioner Profile are important steps that must be completed regardless of whether you are using a free account or a paid subscription.  The information you enter in these profiles is used in various areas across OutSmart.

Completing Your Office Profile

To complete your Office Profile, select the Office option in the Main Navigation Menu.  This will take you to the Office Details Page.

Since most of your Office information was already entered when you initially created the office, the only part left is to upload your Office Logo.  The ideal image dimension will be in a 1:1 ratio, with the ideal size being 300 x 300 px.  The only accepted formats are JPG and PNG.

To upload your logo, click on the Upload Office Logo button in the Office Details Page, and select your logo from your file browser.

The tool to upload your office logo is to the left of the Location Information on the Office Details page.

You can learn more about editing your Office Profile here.

Completing Your Practitioner Profile

To complete your Practitioner Profile, click on the User Menu, identified by your initials, at the top right of the screen, and select the My Profile option in the menu.  This will take you to the Practitioner Profile Page.

On this page, there are a number of areas that must be updated:

  1. Upload a picture of yourself that will be used in areas like the Online Booking Page.  The ideal image dimension will be in a 1:1 ratio, with the ideal size being 300 x 300 px.  The only accepted formats are JPG and PNG.  Click on the Upload Profile Picture, and select the file from your file browser.
  2. Enter your Title in the title field. (for example, Dr.)
  3. Enter your Suffixes, which essentially are your credentials. (for example, MSc, ND, MD, etc).
  4. Enter your Professional License Number, if applicable.  This will be displayed on Invoices and Patient Treatment Plans.
  5. Enter your Professional Bio, which will be displayed on the Online Booking Page.

    The information you upload to the practitioner profile will appear in various places, such as your online book link and patient invoices.

You can learn more about your Practitioner Profile here.

Create Your Calendar Event Types

Create Event Types For Scheduling

Event Types are used not only for scheduling, but also to identify types of charts, as well as services for billing.  Examples of Event Types are ‘Initial Consultation‘, ‘Follow-Up Visit‘, ‘Acupuncture‘, ‘IV Session‘, etc.  These Event Types serve not only to represent appointments in the calendar, but also what type of Medical Chart you can create, and what services you are billing the patient for.

Regardless of the type of OutSmart account you have, setting up Event Types is an important step.  Event Types are created and modified using the Event Manager.

The Event Manager is located within the Calendar Module. There are three categories of Event Types, and two Event Type Scopes.

Event Type Categories

The three Event Type Categories are Patient EventNon-Patient Event, and Background Event.

  • Patient Events refer to events where a patient must be involved in some way.  These are basically your patient appointment types of events, like a First Visit or an Acupuncture session.
  • Non-Patient Events are events where a patient is not involved.  These are typically events like meetings, lunches, vacations, breaks, etc.
  • Background Events are primarily used to add colored areas to your calendar for organizational purposes.  They are not functional event types and do not affect any other area of the system.  They simply allow you to color-code the background of your calendar.

Event Type Scopes

The two Event Type Scopes are Practitioner Event and Office Event.

  • Practitioner Events are event types that are unique to a specific practitioner.  For example, let’s say that you are the only acupuncturist in an office of other types of health care professionals.  Then you would create a Practitioner Event Type called “Acupuncture First Visit”.  This would be a Practitioner Event Type because no one else in the office offers this specific service.
  • Office Events are events that are offered by several different practitioners in the office, and all the data about the event is common, including the price, duration, description, confirmation message, questionnaires, and attachments.  On the online booking page, office events can be presented as being offered by a group of the practitioners in the office, as opposed to a single practitioner at a time.

Creating A New Event Type

To create a new event type, first open the Calendar Module by clicking on the purple calendar icon in the top toolbar at the right.

Click on the Calendar Module icon in the top main toolbar to access the calendar on any page.

Once the calendar is loaded, you will then click on the “gear” icon just above the calendar at to the right of the day, week, and month view buttons.  This will open a small menu.  Click on the Event Manager in that menu.

Click on the ‘gear’ icon, then click on Event Manager.

You will now be able to see the Event Manager area.  It is in this area that you can create and edit events.

The Event Manager

Note To Admin Staff:  If you are logged in to an Admin account, you will see an additional Practitioner Selector in the Top Toolbar for this page.  This will allow you to select for which practitioner you are creating or editing events.  It is important to ensure you have selected the correct practitioner before proceeding with the rest of this tutorial.

To create an event, click on the +New Event Type button at the top to open the Event Type Editor.  To create your first event, select and fill out all the relevant options, and then click on the blue Save button at the bottom of the Event Type Editor.

The Event Type Editor is used to create or edit event types for use in the Calendar.

Event Type Editor Options

  • Title:  This is the name of your event, and will be seen by patients when booking online.
  • Event Category: This is the category of the Event Type.  See above for descriptions of your options.
  • Event Scope: This is the scope of the Event Type:  See above for descriptions of your options.
  • Event Description:  This is the description of your event that will be seen by patients.  Tip: If you want your patients to know the price of your event, then enter it here to make it a part of your descriptions.  We do not show event pricing to patients by default.
  • Duration:  This is the duration of your event, not including any break or buffer time.
  • Price: This is the price of your event, not including any taxes.
  • Buffer: This is the amount of free time you want after this Event Type before your will allow another booking.
  • Interval: This setting is only relevant if you have turned off Magnetic Booking.  When Magnetic Booking is off, this will determine the intervals at which this specific Event Type will be shown in the online booking calendar.  For example, if you start work at 9:00am and you specify an interval of 60 minutes, then this specific Event Type will be offered and 9:00am, 10:00am, 11:00am, etc.
  • Email Confirmation Message: This is the message that will be sent to your patients automatically when they book online.  If you are booking patients into the calendar manually, this is the message that will be included as part of the confirmation message when the ‘Send Confirmation Message’ button is clicked in the calendar.  Keep in mind that the header of the confirmation message by default contains all the pertinent information about this event, so your message should be focused on welcoming the patient and providing some additional details about the visit, or instructions on how to prepare for the visit.
  • Select Questionnaires To Include: This menu will allow you to select one or many SmartForms that you want to include automatically in the confirmation message for this Event Type.  For example, for a First Visit, you may want to automatically include your Initial Adult Intake Form with every booking.
  • Select Document Attachments To Include:  This will allow you to select documents from your OutSmart Documents Module to attach to the confirmation e-mail.
  • Appointment Reminders:  This allows you to specify reminder rules for this specific Event Type.  Note that you must first create the Event Type and save it, and then click on the Edit button for this Event Type in the left column of the Event Manager table to set reminders.  Most people typically set reminders to go out 2 days before the events.

Setup Your Hours Of Operation

Configure Your Working Hours

Hours Of Operation in OutSmart EMR are a Background Event Type created within the Calendar.  They serve two purposes.  First, they visually define your working hours in the calendar, so that you can easily see when you will taking patients. Secondly, they define the rules by which your online booking system will function.

Creating Simple Hours Of Operation

Hours Of Operation background events are created the same way as any other event in your calendar.  This also means that they have all the flexibility of regular events in the calendar.  They can be one-off or repeating, they can stop and resume at any point in time, and they can be deleted and moved around.  To create a background event, click anywhere in the calendar to open up the Calendar Event Editor.

The event editor allows you to specify the properties of your background event.  Let’s say for example that you want to create a weekly repeating Hours Of Operation event on Thursday from 9am to 5pm.  You would first select the ‘Hours of operation’ event type, and then select the weekly repeating option. Set it to Thursdays, and select and end date (if any).  Here’s how that would look:

Calendar Event Editor showing the setup for a simple Hours Of Operation event, repeating weekly every Monday.

When you click on save, the Hours Of Operation event will be created as a Background Event, which means that it lies in the background behind your regular events.  Background events cannot be edited by single click like regular events.  Their purpose is to stay in the background and help to organize and categorize your schedule.  To edit or modify a background event in any way, you can double click on them.

Editing Hours Of Operation

You can edit any background event by double clicking on it.

If you are modifying a repeating set of Hours Of Operation events, an additional dialog will come up asking for the scope of the change.  The options will be to modify this eventthis and following events, or all events.

When editing a recurring event, you can specify the scope of the change.

  • Modify All Events means that you are modifying all of the events in this recurring set of events, including past and future events in this series.
  • This Event means that you are modifying only this specific event in the series.  This selection will result in the splitting of a series of events.  You will have a series of events that preceded this specific event, a series of events that follow this specific event, and the specific event itself, which will be turned into a single, non-repeating event with the changes you specified.
  • This and Following Events means that you are changing this specific event and all following events in the series.  This will result in the splitting of the original series of events into two sets:  All preceding events, and all events from now on.

Creating Complex Hours Of Operation

Complex Hours Of Operation events are the same as Simple Hours Of Operation events, with the additional restriction of a specific event type.  These kinds of events will only allow patients to book a specific set of event types when using the online booking system.  As always, when you are booking manually, there are no restrictions.

For example, if you wanted to create an Hours Of Operation event where you wanted to restrict booking to only Acupuncture and First Visits, you would first select the Hours Of Operation event type, and then continue to select the Acupuncture and First Visit event types as well.  Everything else will be the same as a Simple Hours Of Operation event.  Here is what that would look like:

Select additional event types to restrict the hours of operation to only those event types.

It is important to note that if you create any Hours Of Operation event where there are no additional event types selected (ie simple Hours Of Operation event), then you are allowing all online booking events types to be booked then.

Blocking Off Your Schedule

This video will demonstrate how to block off time in your calendar / schedule for things like breaks, vacations, etc.  Blocking off time in your schedule has an immediate effect on Online Booking availability, however it is always possible for your or your admin staff to book in patients manually even if you are blocked off.

Setup Online Booking

Online Booking Setup

OutSmart Online Booking is one of the most versatile cloud-based online booking systems available. Setting up your Online Booking Page requires setting up your Hours of Operation, your Event Types, your Office Profile and Personal Profile, and your Online Booking Options.  All these different systems work together to create your Online Booking Page exactly the way you want it.

Forever Free Account Limitations: Some advanced Calendar and Online Booking features are only available in paid subscriptions of OutSmart EMR.

Hours Of Operation

Your Hours of Operation are set in the Calendar, and are a type of event called a Background Event.  This is because they lie in the background of your Calendar, and cannot be modified direclty in the normal course of using your Calendar.  To learn how to create your Hours of Operation, see this article.

Event Types

After creating your office hours, you will then need to create all the various Event Types for use in your calendar.  Every event you schedule in your Calendar must be based on a pre-defined Event Type.  This is because there are many things that you can do with your Events, like send RemindersSmartForm QuestionnairesDocument attachments, etc. whenever that event is booked in your Calendar. To learn how to create or edit Event Types, see this article.

Office Profile

Next, you will need to check your Office Profile for completeness.  This includes uploading an Office Logo, and setting your contact information, website address, and office e-mail address.  To learn how to setup your Office Profile, see this article.

Practitioner Profile

After updating your Office Profile, you will need to ensure that your own Practitioner Profile is up to date.  This includes uploading a Profile Picture, and completing your professional bio.  To learn how to setup your Practitioner Profile, see this article.

Online Booking Options

Once all the above is compelted, the final step is to configure your Online Booking Options.  This is where you can set your Magnetic Booking preference, select which Event Types you want to list on your Online Booking Page, and define a Global Confirmation Message, among other things.  This will be discussed further down in this article.

Final Steps

Once all the above systems have been setup, then your Online Booking Page is complete.  You can use the Online Booking URLs provided in your Online Booking Options to install a Book Nowbutton on your website to direct your patients to book their appointments online.  Keep in mind that you will have a different Online Booking URL for every office, and that the above steps have to be followed for every office you have created in OutSmart.  Although most of the information, like your Practitioner Profile or Event Types will carry over from one office to the next, things like your Hours of Operation or Office Profile must be set for every office.

Configure Your Online Booking Preferences

Your Online Booking Preferences are used to tailor how appointments will be offered to your clients. Unlike many other online booking systems, OutSmart does not simply display your schedule and allow clients to book anytime they want.  Instead, we offer specific appointment slots based on your preferences and Hours of Operation.  See this article on how to set up your hours of operation.  The benefit is that clients will be selecting appointment times that are most convenient for you.

Of course, if you prefer to show all your availability all the time, there is a preference setting for that as well.

Note: All Online Booking Preferences affect the behavior of the Online Booking Page only.  You can still manually use the Calendar to schedule appointments at any time.

To setup your preferences, go to the Online Booking Preferences page:

  1. Click on the purple Calendar button at the top right of the OutSmart Interface.  This will open your Calendar.
  2. Click on the Settings button (it has a gear icon on it) to open the settings menu, and then click on the Online Booking Preferences option.  This will open the Online Booking Preferences page.

There are a few settings here that you can adjust to setup your Online Booking Page exactly as you want it.

Note To Admin Staff:  If you are logged in to an Admin account, you will see an additional Practitioner Selector in the Top Toolbar for this page.  This will allow you to select for which practitioner you are editing the Online Booking Preferences.  It is important to ensure you have selected the correct practitioner before proceeding with the rest of this tutorial.

Section 1: Online Booking Options:

  • Online Booking Handle: If you see this option, it quite simply allows you to specify a name to be added to the URL of your personal online booking page.  Most people use their first name and last name.  There cannot be any spaces.  For example, JillSmart.
  • Office / Practitioner Booking Page: If you see this text, then your Online Booking Handle has already been created, so you are instead presented with 2 links:  One for the Office Booking Page, and one for the Practitioner Booking Page.   The Office Booking Page is intended for clinics with multiple practitioners, while the Practitioner Booking Page is intended for use by a single practitioner.
  • Turn Magnetic Booking Off:  Selecting this option will disable Magnetic Booking.  Simply put, Magnetic Booking is a system that will group your appointments together so that you can reduce awkward gaps during the day.  To learn more about Magnetic Booking, see this article.
  • Default Scheduling IntervalsScheduling Intervals take effect only when Magnetic Booking is turned off.  When Magnetic Booking is turned off, Scheduling Intervals will determine when to offer appointments to your clients.  For example, if your day starts at 9:00am, and you set Scheduling Intervals to 30 mins, then the Online Booking system will offer appointments to your clients every 30 minutes starting at 9:00am.  Scheduling Intervals can be set for every Event Type separately, or they can be set here as a global default for all Event Types.  If you have not specified a Scheduling Interval for an Event Type, then this global default will be used.  Scheduling Intervals set on a specific Event Type will override this global default.
  • Break Between Visits: This setting allows you to specify a global default for a required break after every visit.  You can use the Event Manager to specify custom Breaks, call Buffers, for each Event Type.  If you do this, it will override this global default setting.
  • Minimum Booking Notice: This setting specified the minimum amount of advance notice required for appointments booked online.  For example, if this is set to 24 hours, then any client who visits your page at 10:00am today can only book appointments after 10:00am tomorrow.

Section 2: Default Booking Confirmation

  • Default Booking Confirmation Message:  This section contains the global default Booking Confirmation Message, which is used if no message is specified for a specific Event Type. (To specify unique Confirmation Messages for each Event Type, see this article).  You can add Questionnaires and Documents here as well, and they will be sent for every booking made, ONLY of you have not specified a unique Confirmation Message for the Event Type that was booked.

Section 3: Online Booking Events

  • Online Booking Events: This section allows you to specify which of your Event Types you want to allow your clients to book online.  You can check off which events you want, and drag and drop to re-order the events as needed.

In each section, when you are done adjusting your settings, click on the Update button to save your changes.  If you do not click the update button, your settings will not be saved.

How does OutSmart identify an existing patient when they book online?

When a client uses your OutSmart online booking page, we try to identify if they are an existing patient using information they provide.

When one of your existing patients uses you online booking page, we attempt to identify who they are in order to prevent duplicate patient records from being created in your account.  Here is what we look at to find an existing patient:

  1. First Name
  2. Last Name
  3. Date of Birth

If your patient already has a Patient Portal account, then we do not need to rely on the above information – we already know who they are, and can connect the new booking to their patient record.

However, if they are using online booking for the first time, then we have to try to match the above information with a patient record that exists in your list of patients.  So it is important that you try to maintain the accuracy of your records as much as possible.  Ensure that you always verify the proper spelling for the patient’s name, as well as record the accurate date of birth and postal code.  If we cannot find a match, then a new patient record will be created.

Allowing Your Clients to Cancel Appointments Online

In order to allow your clients to cancel appointments online, you must activate that feature in your Online Booking preferences.

Access your online booking options by clicking on the “gear” icon at the top right of the Calendar and then selecting “Online Booking Options”.  Once there, you will see options to allow your patients to cancel their appointments online, as well as the option to specify the minimum notice for these cancellations.

Allow your patients to cancel online by turning on the options in your Online Booking Preferences.

Which events can be cancelled online?

When you turn on online cancellations, all events booked by your clients can be cancelled online.  But it is important to note that unless you provide your patient with a Medical Records Access Code, they will only be able to see and cancel appointments that they have booked themselves through your Online Booking page.  This is a restriction for security reasons.  We do not provide patients any view of private information, even their bookings, until their account is properly identified and authorized by way of the Medical Records Access Code.  Until they are identified in this way, all they have access to is information that they have submitted themselves.  This will include any online bookings they have made themselves, any SmartForms (Intake Forms) they have completed themselves, and any files they have uploaded themselves.

When your patient logs into their Portal, the event cancellation button will appear directly beside their bookings.

Your patients can cancel their appointments online from the Patient Portal.

Adding a Book Online button to your website

Adding a link or a button to your OutSmart Online Booking page is simple, although if you are not familiar with how to edit your website, you may need the assistance of a web designer.

Basically all you will be doing in getting the proper URL for your OutSmart Online Booking page, and then adding this link onto your website.

There are 2 Online Booking URL’s available for your OutSmart account.  The Personal Booking Link, and the Office Booking Link.

Your Online Booking Links are in the Online Booking Options panel of the Calendar settings.

  • Personal Booking Link:  This link will allow you to access a specific practitioner’s personal online booking page.  This page is used when you want to allow your patients to access only your page, an no one else who might be a part of your clinic.
  • Office Booking Link:  This link will allow your patients to access the clinic’s Online Booking Page, which will allow them to book appointments with any practitioner at your clinic.  It also contains bio’s of all the practitioners.

You can locate these links in the OutSmart system by following these steps:

  1. Open your Calendar by clicking on the Calendar Icon at the top right of your screen.  This will slide down the Calendar.
  2. Now click on the  Settings icon at the top right of the Calendar.  This will open a list of settings pages.  Click on the Online Booking Options settings link.
  3. In the Online Booking Options page, you will either see 2 links called Personal Booking Link or Office Booking Link.  If this is the first time you are setting up your online booking, the Personal Booking Link section will show you a field called “Online Booking Handle”.  This is where you can choose a name for your online booking page, and it will become part of your booking URL.  If you see the empty field called Online Booking Handle, please enter in a unique name that you want to be part of your Online Booking URL.  This is for your personal page, not the office page.  Once you select your Handle, you cannot change it.  After typing in your Handle, scroll down and click on the blue Save button below.  This will then immediately update your booking links.
  4. These 2 links are the ones you will need to setup on your website.  Either provide them to your web designer, or add them yourself to a button, link, or menu option on your website.

Create Your First OutSmart Dispensary

Create Your Dispensary

In OutSmart, a Dispensary is not simply for selling products.  An OutSmart Dispensary stores financial information regarding income from Services, Labs, and Products, as well as information about your products, dosages, descriptions, and recommendations.  Besides financials, the Dispensary also manages Inventory and Purchase Orders, and can serve as a POS for your clinic.

You have the option of creating either an Office Dispensary, a Personal Dispensary, or both.

What Is An Office Dispensary?

An Office dispensary is only available within a specific office, and will only be available as a choice when you are logged into that office.  In addition, other members of the Office will be able to use an Office dispensary to bill their patients.  Office Dispensaries can only be created by the Office Owner, or the Admin accounts for that Office.  The Office Owner is the practitioner who first created the Office in their OutSmart account.  An Office Dispensary is best used by an Office that has multiple practitioners that will all bill under the same business name (or plans on having multiple practitioners in the near future).

What Is A Personal Dispensary?

A Personal Dispensary is tied to you directly, and is available to you regardless of which Office you are logged into.  It is best used by practitioners who rent space in several locations and bill their clients directly.

Creating Your Dispensary

Whichever Dispensary Type you choose, they are all created from the Main Navigation Menu:

  1. Open the Main Navigation Menu and click on the Dispensary Login option.  The Dispensary submenu will open, offering you the option of creating a New Personal Dispensary, or a New Office Dispensary.

Clicking Dispensary on the Main Navigation Menu will show you the options to create a new personal or new office dispensary.

  1. Click on whichever type of dispensary you would like to create.  This will create the dispensary, and log you into it.  You will now be within the Dispensary area of OutSmart.  If you want to create another Dispensary from here, click on the Dispensary Name at the right of the Top Toolbar, and the click on Create Dispensary.

Adding additional dispensaries.

Configure Your Dispensary

There are a lot of configuration options in the Dispensary that will become more relevant as your continue using OutSmart, however in this step, we will focus on the Initial Dispensary Setup.  This involves configuring your TaxesItem Categories, and Shipping Address.

Configuring Taxes

Configuring your Taxes in the Dispensary involves setting up Tax Rates, and Tax Groups.  For example, you may have a Provincial Tax of 8% and a Federal Tax of 5%.  These are your Tax Rates.  Whenever you buy a product, you may have to pay both of these taxes on that product.  So we would create a Tax Group called ‘Taxable Goods‘, and we would add both of these Tax Rates to that Tax Group.  From now on, whenever you are selling something that is taxable, you would simply label it as a Taxable Good, and as a result, both the Provincial and Federal Tax Rates would be applied.  Here is how you can do this:

Create Tax Rates

  1. Log into your Dispensary by opening the Main Navigation Menu, and clicking on the Dispensary Login option, and then selecting the dispensary you created previously. (If you are already logged into the Dispensary, you will simple see a Dispensary option).  this will take you to your Dispensary.
  2. Click on the Dispensary Settings menu item at the top, and then select the Tax Rates option in that menu.  This will take you to the Tax Rates page.

Navigating to Tax Rates.

3. Click on the + button at the top right of the Tax Rates table to create a new Tax Rate, or click on the blue Edit button for a specific Tax Rate that you want to edit.  This will open up the Tax Rate editor, where you can create or edit a specific Tax Rate.

Add a new tax rate, or modify an existing one.

4. In the Tax Rate Editor, you can enter a Tax Name (e.g. HST), a Tax Rate (e.g. 10), and a Tax Type (e.g. percentage).  You can also enter your Business Tax Number in the Tax Name (e.g. HST – 3456798RT0001).  Click the Save button to save your changes.  Repeat steps 2 and 3 as needed to create all your Tax Rates.

Create Tax Groups

  1. Click on the Dispensary Settings menu item at the top, and then select the Tax Groups option in that menu.  This will take you to the Tax Groups page.

Navigating to tax groups.

2. Click on the + button at the top right of the Tax Groups table to create a new Tax Group, or click on the blue Edit button for a specific Tax Group that you want to edit.  This will open up the Tax Group editor, where you can create or edit a specific Tax Group.

Add or modify an existing tax group.

3. In the Tax Group Editor, you can enter a Tax Group Title (e.g. Taxable Goods), and then select and add one or more Tax Rates to the Group.  You must also enter a Description for this Tax Group (e.g. Federal and Provincial Taxes).  Click the Save button to save your changes.  Repeat steps 2 and 3 as needed to create all your Tax Groups.

Taxes can be removed from a Tax Group by clicking the red button.

 

Item Categories

Categories are used to organize your billable items (products and services).  It’s a good idea to think about how you want your income to be organized in the Reports you will be generating from OutSmart.  For example, you can create a category for Services, one for Supplements, and one for Labs.  If you prefer more specific reporting however, you may want to create Categories for Acupuncture Services, IV Services, Naturopathic Services, Natural Supplements, Pharmaceuticals, Labs, etc.  It all depends on how detailed you need your reports to be.  Keep in mind that you can always update and change your categories later as well.

  1. Click on the Products menu item at the top, and then select the Categories option in that menu.  This will take you to the Categories page.

Navigating to Categories.

2. Click on the + button at the top right of the Categories table to create a new Category, or click on the blue Edit button for a specific Category that you want to edit.  This will open up the Category editor, where you can create or edit a specific Category.

Create a new category, or edit an existing one.

3. In the Category Editor, you can enter a Category Name (e.g. Supplements), and a Category Description (e.g. All Natural Supplements).  you can disable or enable a category here as well. Click the Save button to save your changes.  Repeat this steps 2 and 3 as needed to create all your Categories.

Make sure to save a category once you’re done editing it.

Shipping Address

Setting up a Shipping Address is important if you intend on creating Purchase Orders in OutSmart.  You can read more about Purchase Orders here, but one of the reasons that Purchase Orders are important is that they help to manage your inventory.  In order to create Purchase Orders, you need to have a Shipping Address specified; so we will set that up here.

  1. Click on the Dispensary Settings menu item at the top, and then select the Address Book option in that menu.  This will take you to the Dispensary Address Book page.

Navigating to the address book.

2. You can set up more than one address here if needed, however most people only require one address.   Enter in all your address information, and select Default Address at the bottom to use this address as a default for all Purchase Orders.

Adding your first shipping address.

Fill out every field with a red asterisk. Remember to save when you’re done.

3. Click on Save to save the address.

Managing Dispensary Items

An item is anything that you sell in your clinic.  It includes products, services, labs, and anything else that you want to add to an invoice when billing your clients.

Adding Items

Items can be added to your dispensary in a few different ways.

  1. You can manually open your dispensary and add items, one at a time.
  2. You can create a new item from your SOAP chart, when you are creating a treatment plan for a patient.
  3. You can automatically create an item in your dispensary by using the Express Checkout card on the Dashboard, when you are checking your patient out for a newly created Event Type.
  4. You can request an import of your inventory details stored in another system.

Manually adding items to the dispensary

To manually add items to your dispensary, start by going to the dispensary using the Main Navigation Menu.  Once you are in your dispensary, click on the Products menu at the top, and select Product List.

Navigating to the product list.

On the Product List page, click on the button labelled +New Product.  This will open a new product editing screen.  You can add your product details here, and click on the Save button to save the product and return to your product list.

Click the new product button to enter the product creation menu.

Fill out all the desired fields, and then click save.

Adding items via SOAP charts

Items can be added to the dispensary via SOAP charts.  To learn how to do this, please read the article on the Product Section of the SOAP chart.  This will give you all the details on how to add items to your dispensary this way.

Adding items via Express Checkout

The Express Checkout Card on the Dashboard is used to quickly create invoices for your clients when they are checking out.  During the process of creating the client invoice, Express Checkout will search the dispensary for all items you are attempting to bill for.  If it does not find an item in the dispensary, it will create that item in the dispensary, and then add it to the invoice.  To learn more about how and why this is used, read this article on converting Calendar Events into billable Items in the dispensary.

Requesting an import of all your items from another system

If you are able to produce an excel spreadsheet of your inventory items, you can send us an e-mail and request that we import your list for you.  Our team will do one free inventory import per clinic, so if you have hundreds of items to enter into the system, this may be the fastest and easiest solution for you.  To avail yourself of this service, simply download our Excel CSV template listed below, and fill out as many of the fields as possible.  You can then send that to us via e-mail and we will take care of the rest!


Removing Items

Here is how you can delete a product from your dispensary:

  1. Go to the Product List in the Dispensary.
  2. Search for, and then check mark the product you want to delete.
  3. Click on the “Delete Selected” button at the top right of the product list.
How to delete a product from your dispensary

How to delete a product from your dispensary

Invite or Remove Practitioners And Staff

Invite Your Team To Your Office

In order to invite practitioners and staff to your office, you must have first setup your account.  Complete that step before continuing.

Inviting Practitioners and Staff to your office is done from your Office Details Page within your OutSmart account.  To get there, click on the Office option in the OutSmart Main Navigation Menu.

Click on the Office option in the Main Navigation Menu to access the Office Details Page.

When you are on the Office Details Page, click on the tab at the top called Practitioners and Staff.  This is where you can invite your additional practitioners or staff to your office.

Click on the Practitioners and Staff tab to access the invitations page.

To invite practitioners or staff to your clinic, you must send the invitation using the identical e-mail address that they will be using to create their account (or are already using for their existing account).  The left column invitation link is for inviting practitioners, and the right column link is for inviting staff.

You will also see a list of your current staff and practitioners on this page.  You can remove them from your office by clicking the Remove button next to their names.

Practitioners are listed on the left column, and administrative staff are listed on the right.

Accepting Invitations

Invited individuals will receive an email with a registration link. They must click on this registration link which will take them to our account registration page, and will automatically add a security code to the registration form. This is the only way to create an account in our system. Navigating directly to the registration page without clicking a link in the invitation email will not work to create an account.

If you have been invited to a clinic, but have not received the invitation email, check your spam to see if the email went there by accident. If so, please mark the email as “not spam” in order to avoid this in the future.

If you still cannot find the invitation email, it could be that you either already have an account in the system, or that email address is in use by another account in the system. In both of these cases, the remedy is to ask the clinic to try using a different email address to invite you, or to contact OutSmart Support and request a review of the invitation.

This invitation process is completed when the invited practitioner or staff logs in to their account and accepts the invitation.  If they are already logged in, they must log out and then back in to receive the invitation request.  Once they approve the request, they will be linked to your office.

Click Approve to accept the invitation offer.

Remove practitioners and staff from your office

To remove Staff or Practitioners from your clinic and prevent them from seeing things like your schedule or your patient list, you need to un-invite them from your clinic.  Here is how you can do this:

  1. Go to the Main Navigation Menu, and click on Office.  This will take you to the Office Details page.
  2. From the Office Details page, select the Practitioners and Staff tab.  This will show you the list of practitioners and staff currently connected to your clinic.
  3. Un-invite those you want to remove.
Removing staff or practitioners from your office.

Managing Your Team’s Permissions

Setting Dispensary Access Permissions

Dispensary Access Permissions allow you to control who can access your dispensary and create invoices, manage inventories, etc.  You can give permissions to anyone within the office you are logged into.  This includes practitioners or admin staff.  If you have multiple offices, you will need to log into each of those offices in turn if you want to provide access to people who are in each of these offices.

If you restrict access to an individual, then this person will not be able to access your dispensary or select it from any menus.

How to grant access to your dispensary

Only the owner of a dispensary (the practitioner who created the dispensary in OutSmart) can set Access Permissions.  If a logged in user is not the owner, they will not even see the menu option related to Access Permissions.

To get the the Access Permissions page, go into the dispensary, click on the Dispensary Settings menu, and then click on Access Permissions.

The dispensary creator can click on “Dispensary Settings” and then “Access Permissions” to update the dispensary permissions for their admins and practitioners.

On the access permissions page, you can select a member of the clinic to add permissions.  Once you select a member of the clinic, they automatically have all permissions available.  However, you can refine those permissions as well.

You can refine a clinic member’s permissions by selecting and deselecting specific actions they are able to perform.

Revoking Access

If you want to remove access to your dispensary, then you can click on the “trash can” icon to remove access.

Click on the trash can to revoke dispensary access.

Understanding Patient List Privacy For Teams

What is Patient List Privacy?

Patient List Privacy is a built-in feature of the OutSmart system.  In designing the system, we have considered both collaborative clinics as well as clinics where practitioners do not share information.  The Patient List Privacy features of OutSmart ensure that in both of these scenarios, patient information can be kept as private, or as shared as needed.  This is achieved by recording the connections, or ‘links’, between patients, practitioners and clinics/offices.

The Patient Link is an important piece of information that allows OutSmart to determine what you have permission to do with a patient record.  For example:

  • Another practitioner at your clinic cannot create a SOAP chart for one of your patients, or view their demographics, unless that patient has booked an appointment with them.
  • A practitioner cannot create a chart for a patient at an office that the patient has never been to.  The patient would have to book in with that office or clinic first.
  • Admin staff cannot access any patients that have never been to their office, even if that patient is a client of a practitioner at that office.  This allows you to maintain several locations where your patient information is isolated to those locations, until such time as one of your patients books in with you at another office.

There are more examples of why the Patient Link is important, but all are geared towards maintaining Patient Privacy.  It’s also useful to note that the OutSmart Calendar plays a central role in organically giving both admins and practitioners the permission to see specific patient records when supported by an appointment booking.

Linking a patient to other practitioners or other offices

There are two main reasons why you might want to connect a single patient record to several office locations, or several practitioners:

  1. This patient is being seen by the same practitioner in multiple locations
  2. This same patient is being seen by multiple practitioners at the same location.

It is important however to be able to maintain Patient Privacy, while still being able to share a patient record among offices or practitioners.

Patient Lists in OutSmart respect certain Patient Privacy Rules:

  1. Patients are linked to specific offices and specific practitioners based on bookings.
  2. Patients of one practitioner cannot be seen by another practitioner in the same office unless they book an appointment with them.
  3. Patients can be directly assigned to practitioners by Admin staff, if the calendar is not being used or not relevant to the situation.
  4. Patients can be assigned to offices by booking an appointment in that office, or by being assigned to an office by a practitioner.

Following the above rules ensures that Patient Privacy is respected, even in clinics with multiple practitioners, or in the case of a practitioner working in several locations.  These procedures ensure that either an Admin Staff member or a Practitioner are directly involved and aware of the sharing of patient information.

Manually Assigning A Patient To A Practitioner (Admin Staff only)

A patient can be assigned to a practitioner by the Admin staff, through the Master Patient List in an Admin account:

  1. Open the Master Patient List by clicking on the Patients option in the Main Navigation Menu.
  2. Find the Patient you are looking for by using the search field at the top right of the Patient List.
  3. In the left-most column of the Patient List (Admin Accounts Only), you will see a practitioner icon.  Click on that.  In the window that opens, a Green button means that the practitioner is already connected to this patient.  Clicking the Green button will break the connection.  A Grey button means that the practitioner is not connected to the patient.  Clicking the Grey button will create a connection.

Example of active and inactive links between patients and practitioners. This is a view from an Admin account.

Example of active and inactive links between patients and practitioners. This is a view from an Admin account.

A patient can be assigned to a practitioner by any practitioner in an office, simply by the creation of an appointment in the Calendar between the patient and the practitioner:

  1. Create an appointment in the Calendar between the patient and the practitioner.
  2. Save the appointment and the link between the patient and practitioner will be created.

Assigning A Patient To An Office.

A patient can be assigned to an office by a practitioner, through the Master Patient List:

  1. Open the Master Patient List by clicking on the Patients option in the Main Navigation Menu.
  2. Find the Patient you are looking for by using the search field at the top right of the Patient List.
  3. In the left-most column of the Patient List (Practitioner Accounts Only), you will see a office icon.  Click on that.  In the window that opens, you will see one or more grey and green buttons with office names.  A Green button means that this patient is already connected to the office.  Clicking the Greenbutton will break the connection.  A Grey button means that this patient is not connected to the office.  Clicking the Grey button will create a connection.

Example of Patient to Office links. This view is from the practitioner account.

Example of Patient to Office links. This view is from the practitioner account.

A patient can also be assigned to an office by booking an appointment with a practitioner at that office:

  1. Create an appointment in the Calendar between the patient and the practitioner, at the specified Office location.
  2. Save the appointment and the link between the patient and office will be created.

Copy Calendar Event Types Into the Dispensary

Instructional Video

Creating billable items from Calendar Events

You can use the Express Checkout to create a billable item from your Calendar Events.

The OutSmart Calendar, which takes care of your schedule and online booking, and the OutSmart Dispensary, which takes care of your billing, are connected through the Express Checkout system available on the Dashboard.

Creating an Event Type, like a First Visit or a Follow-Up in your Calendar, does not automatically make that event a billable item in your OutSmart Dispensary.  Instead, the first time you use the Express Checkout to bill your client for that event, the system will automatically create a Dispensary Item that is linked to that event.  You do not need to manually create a Dispensary Item for that Event Type because the Express Checkout does it for you.

However, if you just want to get your Event Types created into Dispensary Items right away and do not want to wait for when you bill your clients, you can do this by creating a ‘fake’ appointment for today in your calendar for a ‘fake’ client, and book them in for ALL your Event Types.  Then you can use the Express Checkout system to bill this fake client and have all the Event Types created for you.  Then you will delete this invoice and delete the appointment.

Here is how you do this:

Create a fake appointment for a fake patient for today.  the appointment must be for the current day in order for it to show up in your Express Checkout.  Select ALL your billable events that you want to use to create corresponding dispensary items.  See image below:

Ensure to select ALL billable events

2. Go to the Dashboard.  In the Express Checkout area, click and select every event listed for your fake patient, and click on the green New Invoice button to create an invoice for them.  This will add all the events into your Dispensary as Items.

Synchronizing your calendar events with your dispensary
Synchronizing your calendar events with your dispensary

3. Once all of this has been done, you will need to go into your Calendar and delete the fake appointment, and then go into your Dispensary and delete the face invoice.

Explore The Dashboard

Customizing your Dashboard with Dashboard Cards

Your OutSmart Dashboard can be customized to suit your specific requirements by selecting and configuring Dashboard Cards.  A Dashboard Card is like a widget that you can add to your Dashboard.  It may have customizable settings which allow it to display a variety of information, and all Dashboard Cards can be scaled in both height and width, so that you can choose an optimal dashboard configuration for your clinic.

Dashboard preferences are saved by user, so every practitioner and every admin staff can choose to personalize their own dashboard.

Adding A Dashboard Card

To add a new dashboard card, click on the  Dashboard Menu button in the top toolbar of the Dashboard.  This will open the Dashboard Cards menu.  Click on any menu item to add that card to your Dashboard.

Click on the Dashboard Cards Menu button in the Top Toolbar to access the Dashboard Cards Menu.

Customizing The Size Of A Dashboard Card

Every card may have different configuration settings that can be used to customize the data presented by the card.  Those settings will be described in help files for those individual cards.  But in all cases, you can access card settings by clicking on the  gear icon at the top right of the card.

The size of a card can be modified by selecting the  more options button at the top right of the card.  This will open up a menu which will allow you to select the width and height of the card.

Clicking on the “more options” button at the top right of a card will allow you access to change the size of the card.

Clicking on the “more options” button at the top right of a card will allow you access to change the size of the card.

Re Positioning Your Dashboard Cards

Changing the order of your cards can be done by dragging the card by it’s  handle, located at the top left of the card. You can drag the card around the screen and re-position it as desired.  Once re-positioned, all other cards will re-flow to take up any empty space available on the dashboard.  Re-positioning and changing the size of the cards will allow you to pack your cards on your dashboard in any way you want.

You can drag a card by its handle to reposition it on the Dashboard

You can drag a card by its handle to reposition it on the Dashboard

Removing a Dashboard Card

As with changing the size of a card, removing a card can also be done by accessing the  more options button at the top right of the card.  A menu will open, and the bottom option is to remove the card.  You will be prompted to confirm removal of the card.  If you remove a card, any preferences saved in that card will be lost.

Removing a card. Note that any preferences saved in the card will be lost upon removal.

Removing a card. Note that any preferences saved in the card will be lost upon removal.

List of Dashboard Cards

The OutSmart Dashboard can be personalized to provide you with the information that is most important to you.  You can add, remove and resize the Dashboard Cards in a way that best suits your screen and your clinic.

Booking Trends

The Booking Trends card can be used to show you trends in your events and your practitioner bookings.

The Booking Trends card can be used to show you trends in your events and your practitioner bookings.

The Booking Trends card is a very powerful graphing card which can be used to show you comparative trends between your event types, and even your clinic practitioners.  Use it to evaluate the way you assign patients to practitioner, or to evaluate how many of a specific booking you get per day, per week, or per month.  Anything you want to know about your scheduling trends can be displayed by this card. Learn more about this dashboard card here.

Xpress Checkout

The Xpress Checkout card will help you auto-create invoices and checkout your patients fast.

The Xpress Checkout card will help you auto-create invoices and checkout your patients fast.

The Xpress Checkout card can be used to checkout your patients quickly.  It automatically generates a list of all the patient’s services and billable products for the day, which saves you tons of time when creating an invoice for the patient.  OutSmart EMR is the only service which can use your medical charts in order to auto-bill Injections, Labs, IV Therapy, Supplements, and Prescriptions.  Save your admin staff some time! Learn more about this dashboard card here.

Daily Schedule

The Daily Schedule card helps you see your day at a glance, and quickly create charts for patients.

The Daily Schedule card helps you see your day at a glance, and quickly create charts for patients.

The Daily Schedule card will show you your current schedule, and identify past, current, and upcoming appointments for the day.  It will also provide you contact information, and show you whether or not your patient confirmed their attendance to the appointment through our automatic reminder messages. Learn more about this dashboard card here.

SOAP Charts

The SOAP Charts card can give you a list of incomplete charts as well as a list of recently created charts, to give you quick access to your most relevant medical charts

The SOAP Charts card can give you a list of incomplete charts as well as a list of recently created charts, to give you quick access to your most relevant medical charts

The SOAP Charts card can show you your list of incomplete charts, as well as your list of recent charts.  This can help admin staff to see which charts have been recently created, and it can help practitioners see which charts they still have to work on. Learn more about this dashboard card here.

Product Label

The Product Label Dashboard Card

The Product Label Dashboard Card

The Product Label Dashboard Card can be used to quickly generate a printable label to apply to your products at the time of dispensing.  Although it is usually recommended that you use the features of SOAP charts to be able to automatically generate product labels based on the medical charts you create, the Product Label Dashboard Card will allow you to bypass this by creating labels for products on the fly, without need for a corresponding SOAP chart.  Learn more about this dashboard card here.