For those item numbers, such as GP Management Plans, that can only be charged once within a certain time period, you may be wondering if there is an easy way to track when these item numbers were last charged to patients.
Well, you’re in luck, because there is!
Rather than trawling through a patient’s Account History or running an Item Report through File > Maintenance and Reports > Practice Analysis > Item Report (which does not display the last time this item number was charged), you can use the Item Register. This displays clearly the last time your tracked item numbers were charged to your patients. It is also faster and more user-friendly than using the File > QuickReports function for running this query.
Before you begin
The Item Register is only available for practices who are set in File > Set Practice Type to General Practice, Obs/Gynae/IVF Specialist, Rheumatology, Dermatology, or Other Specialty.
Some item numbers such as Care Plan items, Health Assessment items, 10997, and 10987 are automatically tracked. You can add other items that you wish to track in addition to these, however, you will need to be discerning about which to add. Depending on the size of your database and the number of item numbers you are tracking, it may take some time to open the Item Register as Genie has to search for all of these item numbers and load them before the window can display.
How do you use the Item Register?
Start by navigating to Open > Patients then either searching just for the patient you wish to investigate the billing items for or click on 
to produce all patient records before you navigate to the patients menu and select Item Register.
If searching for certain patients only, for example, female patients, you can refine your search parameters first, before you even get to the Item Register. To do this, from Open > Patients, cancel the search box and click then Records > Search to carry out your query first, before going to Patients > Item Register. If you need to learn more about running queries in Genie, you may wish to refer to the QuickReports article.
Once you are in the Item Register, look at the dates provided for each tracked item number. These are based on the last service date of this item for this patient.
You can click on the 
button to select another item number to track. Another column will then appear for this item number, as well as the last date charged, regardless of when you started tracking this item number.
If you want to remove a previously added tracked item you can right click on its column in the Item Register and select Delete.
What else can you do in the Item Register?
After you have brought up your results on the screen, you can also make use of the 
, 
, and 
buttons from the top of the window to take appropriate action based on the results that have been returned by the Item Register. You can find further information on these functions in our articles on recalls, tasks, and the patient list area in Genie.