How do I check in a patient?
Use the clinic schedule to confirm an appointment and check the patient in when they arrive.
How do I check in a patient?
Checking in tells the care team the patient has arrived.
Who can do this: Front Desk, Administrative Staff / All Billing and Full Access members for any patient, and Clinician (Limited) members with Access Charts on for patients on their care team. See Who can do what?
Steps
- Open Schedule.
- Choose the Day view and go to today's date. (Front Desk also has a Clinic view with every provider's day, but check-in is not on it.)
- Find the appointment and open its actions menu.
- Select Check In Patient.
A message says Appointment updated, and the status changes to checked in.
For an appointment that is not confirmed yet, you can choose Mark as Confirmed from the same menu ahead of the visit.
Rules to know
- Only appointments that are still booked or pending can be checked in. Completed or cancelled appointments cannot.
- In the Next Up view, Check In appears only on confirmed in-person visits.
- Front Desk sees patient names and times, not clinical details.
If something goes wrong
- Failed to update appointment means the status did not change. If the message says "Cannot check in appointment with status", the appointment is already checked in, completed or cancelled. Otherwise try again, then ask your clinic admin to check your role.
- If you cannot find the appointment, check the date and the provider.