The outpatient clinic day

The order of steps follows a practising outpatient clinician's high-level walkthrough of a clinic day, checked against what ArkCloud does today. It is not every clinic's policy. Your clinic may split the work differently - who books, who verifies benefits, who checks in - and ArkCloud does not force one split.

Most front-desk work can be done in either of two applications. ArkCloud Rehab is where the clinical record lives and where a therapy clinic usually works all day. ArkCloud Access is an optional front door over the same records: a check-in done in Access is the same check-in Rehab shows. The front desk guide says which to use for each task.

Example (synthetic patient)

Jordan Avery, born 12 April 1979, mobile 555-0142. Referred by a fictional orthopaedic practice, Lakeside Orthopaedics, for physical therapy for left knee pain, medial joint line, after a twisting injury. The referral arrives by fax with two pages of clinic notes. Jordan is booked for an initial evaluation and then twice a week for six weeks.

Every value in the example is invented and uses only choices the product's own lists offer. The clinical pick-lists are still under clinical review, so treat them as examples, not as validated content.

Jordan: the front desk receives the fax. They record the referral in Rehab with Jordan's name and date of birth, the referring practice and the reason, and file the two faxed pages on Jordan's Documents tab with the Physician referral template (type Referral, arrived “Fax or paper, scanned”). When the referral is accepted into care, Jordan's patient record and a physical therapy episode are created together.

Insurance is recorded at the same stage by registration staff: coverage on the episode's billing setup, benefits as stated by the payer by phone or portal, and any prior authorization. Electronic eligibility checks are not connected on the hosted service, so benefits are verified by phone or payer portal - see eligibility and prior authorization.

Jordan: the front desk books a course from the episode: the initial evaluation service first, then follow-up visits twice a week with the same physical therapist.

Jordan: arrives ten minutes early. The front desk presses Check in on Jordan's row of the schedule. The row now reads Checked in.

The one exception is an urgent intake answer: if a patient's intake answer screens positive for an urgent symptom, the attending clinician, supervisors and administrators get an in-app alert.

Jordan: the physical therapist opens Jordan from the schedule. Above the tabs, the chart shows no precautions recorded. On Clinical history, one outside record is awaiting clinical review - the faxed clinic notes. The therapist reads it and accepts a surgical-history entry the front desk transcribed from it, then goes back to Home and presses Evaluation beside the episode.

If a registration detail looks wrong - a changed phone number, the wrong insurance - a clinician assigned the clinical staff function flags it for the front desk from the chart instead of editing it. The front desk is not notified; they work the open-flags list. See front-desk flags.

Jordan: the therapist presses Start visit, then Write note, and chooses Initial Evaluation. They record left knee flexion AROM 105° (right 128°), knee extension MMT 4- left and 5 right, McMurray test positive and Lachman negative, pain 5/10, and the goals. At later visits they write a visit note: therapeutic exercise and gait training on stairs, the patient's response, and goal progress.

Outpatient → Schedule → Start visit → Write note

Disciplines differ. An occupational therapy episode can add hand therapy, neurological or paediatric specialty sections (for example grip strength, edema, sensation and orthosis details). A speech-language pathology episode records communication and, within the configured scope, swallowing, with trials and cueing levels. There is no single physical therapy model applied to everyone.

Jordan: the therapist reads the note through, corrects one sentence, and signs. ArkCloud asks for their authenticator code before the signature is applied.

Jordan: the remaining visits are already booked from the course. The clinic has approved the LEFS, so the therapist records Jordan's score of 38 at the evaluation and 52 at the progress report; ArkCloud shows the change as arithmetic and which direction the scale counts as better. It does not call it improvement or significance.

Jordan: the therapist presses Complete on the schedule when the visit ends. The evaluation service Jordan was booked under is recorded. Once the note is signed and coverage is in place, it appears as Ready to bill, and an administrator posts the charge.