Retired Doctor/Dr who leaves practice

[pnwuser]

We had a doctor retire from our practice in June and another is leaving in January. I was told by Crystal tech support that the best way to handle it is to mark the employee inactive in the Admin section. When I do this, it shows all appointments were seen by "N/A" doctor instead of the original name and the doctor's name is not printed on the records when we need to print them out. We need to keep both of these options to know who the patient was seen by, but have a way to click a button in the employee page that says "Dr no longer works here." We'd like that while that button is checked we can't create invoices, records, etc. under the doctor but we can still access past invoices, records and appointments.

Also, we've been able to reschedule or cancel most of his appointments but when we removed him from the schedule a pop-up alert comes up that says, "There are two appointments assigned to Dr.___, who is not scheduled." This is helpful for rescheduling patients we haven't gotten a hold of yet but the pop-up comes up for even patients that were just cancelled (we keep cancelled appointments on the schedule and move them up to first thing in the morning for liability reasons). Is there a way to remove the pop-up if the appointments are marked cancelled?

We can't be the only office that has had a retired doctor or a doctor move on to a new position and be left with these issues to handle.

[vaderkty]

it took them forever to make the DOCTORS NAME stay on invoice, it used to rotate to the next doctor in line...which didn't help much with keeping our invoices correct. i used to have to activate the Dr anytime i needed to know who did something, than deactivate.

[idrdawn]

I had a doctor leave my practice last month and I made the decision to keep her ACTIVE so that her name would still appear on records and Rx printouts. I noticed when staff would leave and they were deleted or inactivated, "unknown" would show up instead of their real name. Quite frustrating! So, my associate who is no longer here will have no schedule in her name, but she will have to remain ACTIVE.

[pnwuser]

Thank you both for your replies. I spoke to James at Crystal PM and he said the development team is putting all efforts into MIPS/AOA More at this time but once that is done he agreed this would be a good thing to fix. He suggested I call and suggest it again at the end of the year, which I plan to do. He also said the more comments on this post the more attention it will get and more likely the developers will see it. Keep the comments coming!

[pnwuser]

One of the issues I had with there being no "suspend" button was that somehow invoices were still being created under the old doctor and being sent to insurance companies. Yikes! But I found a way to help with that! I have removed our retired Doctors NPI in Crystal so an alert pops-up on the claims when we try to mark it ready in Crystal. That way it is easier to catch things before they slip out the door. Just wanted to share in case other offices are having this problem too!

[vaderkty]

Sept 18, 2017 13:34:10 GMT -6 idrdawn said:

I had a doctor leave my practice last month and I made the decision to keep her ACTIVE so that her name would still appear on records and Rx printouts. I noticed when staff would leave and they were deleted or inactivated, "unknown" would show up instead of their real name. Quite frustrating! So, my associate who is no longer here will have no schedule in her name, but she will have to remain ACTIVE.

It should actually be her employee #, not name or unknown.


When was your last update and what version are you on? I have to run many year to date vs previous years and sales reports and who has better sales per exam, etc. I know by employee # who is who.

[vaderkty]

Sept 18, 2017 13:34:10 GMT -6 idrdawn said:

I had a doctor leave my practice last month and I made the decision to keep her ACTIVE so that her name would still appear on records and Rx printouts. I noticed when staff would leave and they were deleted or inactivated, "unknown" would show up instead of their real name. Quite frustrating! So, my associate who is no longer here will have no schedule in her name, but she will have to remain ACTIVE.

Are you an admin? You can write in the notes section of the employee file who has what # under YOUR notes section,


just to reference. it doesn't show unknown for deactivate employees in the frames page for inventory page.


What page/report is this happening to you? The only one I have found that JUST says "Unknown" is the NEW capture rate report. I am fairly certain they can easily fix that to include employee #.

Side bar... I wish they would add the assigned employee number somewhere in the employee files. right now, you have to COUNT each space and write it in the notes section or activate all employees, count it out and just do that every time you need to look for (Unknown 17) or whatever unknown #. I use the notes for each employee to keep track of hire, when raises, if written up, let go or quite date, if rehire-able, when vacation is available, etc. makes life easier. One my personal just list # for each current and past employee.

[asuda]

We too have had a Doctor retire in 8/2017 and the question came up today if we should inactivate him. We do still want to have him listed with appointments and reports, especially since we get a lot of report requests for his name. Had anyone tried unchecking him as a provider? Would that still hold past date but prevent him from being selected on invoices?

[vaderkty]

May 8, 2018 11:42:22 GMT -6 asuda said:

We too have had a Doctor retire in 8/2017 and the question came up today if we should inactivate him. We do still want to have him listed with appointments and reports, especially since we get a lot of report requests for his name. Had anyone tried unchecking him as a provider? Would that still hold past date but prevent him from being selected on invoices?

[/quoteit should keep him off scheduling, actively, but, running any reports shouldn't be affected. Worst case, activate while running report, than deactivate so someone doesn't accidentally select. You can also keep active but uncheck the schedule patients so they stay active for reports but not able to be selected in appointment book. It's a bandaid until they really fix problem. It's been a problem for over 5 years now.i have higher dr turnover than employee.