Emailing Pathology & Radiology Requests to Patients

Emailing Pathology & Radiology Requests to Patients lets Providers send investigation request forms straight to a patient’s email instead of printing them, and the feature can be enabled or disabled per practice. It gives patients a fast, secure way to receive their request without manual follow-up, reducing administrative effort for clinicians and reception staff.

Contents:

1. Pre-requisites
2. Enabling or Disabling the Email Requests Feature
3. Emailing a Request Form
4. Confirming Emails Have Sent
5. Troubleshooting

Pre-requisites

To send an email request successfully, the following need to be in place:

1. Service Provider must be configured with a PDF Investigation Template.
   The investigation template used for the request needs to be in PDF format. This is configured per Service Provider through System Configuration. For instructions, including how to check if a template is a PDF, see Pathology & Radiology Request Templates: Configuration.
    
2. Security Privilege.
   The Requestor must have Read, Create, and Update access to Investigation Requests in their Security Role.
    
3. Digital Signature of Requestor.
   A new mail merge field, Digital Signature Investigation Request, is now available in the Letter Template Builder. Add this field to your Investigation Templates to automatically populate the requester's digital signature, removing the need to upload a pre-signed investigation template.

Enabling or Disabling the Email Requests Feature

Emailing Requests to Patients is enabled by default for all tenants. If this doesn't align with your practice's workflow, it can be disabled at any time.

1. Navigate to More, then select Settings, then Configuration. 
   
    
2. Click Care System Configuration. 
   
    
3. Select Investigation, then tick or untick the Enable Emailing Requests to Patients checkbox to turn the feature on or off. 
   
    

Emailing a Request Form

This section explains how to send a request form to a patient by email.

1. Navigate to the patient record and either create a new request form or open an existing one.
2. Ensure the Service Provider field is completed. This activates the Save and Email button. 
   
    
3. Once the requirements are met, click Save and Email. 
   
    
4. A pop-up will appear asking you to confirm the patient's email address. 
   
    
5. A green confirmation pop-up will appear once the email has been sent. 
   
    

The email is now sent to the patient, and the request is saved under the Investigation Request section of the patient record. You can return to the request at any time to resend it.

If you don't want to email the request immediately, click Save and email it later.

Once the email is delivered, it looks like this:

Confirming Emails Have Sent

Sent emails can be audited from the Tasks section of Activities.

1. Navigate to Activities > Tasks from the top menu ribbon, or from within the patient record.

2. Apply the following filters:

   • Status: Completed
   • Assignee User: Requestor of the investigation
   • Type: Email

   

   
    

3. The filtered list will show all emails that have been sent. 
   
   
    Hover over the Description to view details of the email sent. 
   
    

Alternatively, you can check the Audit section of the patient record.

Troubleshooting

Save and Email Button Stays Inactive

Cause: The Save and Email button stays inactive when the selected Service Provider’s configured investigation template is not in PDF format, or when the request’s status is not Outstanding or Partially Received.

Resolution: Hover over or click the notification next to the button to see which condition has not been met.

If the issue is the template format, configure the Service Provider with a PDF Investigation Template (see Pre-requisites). If the issue is the request status, update the request to Outstanding or Partially Received before resending.

Escalate when: The button remains inactive after both conditions have been confirmed as met.

Further Reading

• Investigation Requests: Pathology & Radiology
• Pathology & Radiology Request Templates: Configuration
• Security Role Configuration