Possible estimate and template enhancements
Hi all, before I set up new projects, I would like to get some feedback on some potential enhancements to the way estimates are invoiced, and template expansion prompting.
Estimates
At present, everthing on an estimate is invoiced regardless of quantity. If you have templates where there are multiple possible products to select, one approach is to:
- set the quantities of each to zero
- increment the quantities of those products you want in the final invoice
- manually delete the products you don't want, either from the estimate, or the invoice
An alternative to this would be to display a prompt when invoicing an estimate:
This estimate has items with a zero Low and High Quantity.
Do you wish to exclude them from the Invoice?
Selecting Yes would invoice all of the items except those with zero quantities.
Selecting No would invoice all items, regardless of quantity.
This would remove the need to manually delete the items.
Template Expansion Prompting
At present, all products in a template are included in an invoice or estimate, subject to patient weight ranges.
The Product location filter project extends this to excluded products not available at a practice location.
Another enhancement would be allow products to be selected for inclusion. E.g a template could list 5 anaesthetic products and prompt the user to select the products to include.
This would be done by providing a Prompt option for each included product. Those without Prompt selected would be automatically included.
The prompting could require at least one of the products to be selected, or make selection optional.
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
Hi,
Template Expansion Prompting
- Allowing products to be selected for inclusion would be a massive help. We have several templates we want to construct that essentially require this feature for implementation.
Estimates
- Works for me. Would template expansion prompting occur in estimates as well?
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
Do the templates you want to create have any restrictions on them?
E.g. do you require at least one product and the rest are optional?
Template expansion prompting applies to estimates and charges (invoices, credit, counter sales).
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
Hi,
yes, this would be ideal.
For example we would like to create a 12 hour hospital pain relief fee where clinician can select to use methadone, buprenorphine, etc. but have it as a flat charge, so there would be a compulsory "12 hour pain relief" fee/item, then they could select what combination of pain relief items they would like on top of that (these would be zero charge items).
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
In both of these cases I often currently run into problems because items have already been charged (eg. radiographs or blood tests to create an investigation) and are also included in an estimate or template so when you charge it up after doing the procedure you end up with multiples of these items. You then need to try and figure out which one you need to delete which can sometimes take longer than invoicing out the individual items.
Could the items being added to the invoice from either a template or estimate be presented in a table like the following (where the yellow parts are editable)?
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
When invoicing estimates, it could show products already present in the invoice and prompt to:
The same could be done for templates i.e. when expanding a template in an estimate or invoice, it would prompt if any duplicates are detected.
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
but... would that be one per prompt per discrepancy? That would get quite annoying/slow.
Also with regard to the date charged how would the rules work? Say you had a daily template for hospital care with IV fluids and standard medications, would you be prompted for each item on every day you charge it because it detects a "duplicate" on the invoice?
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
Hi,
I would agree that this prompt would a) be slow. b) be open to issues with knowing what items should and shouldn't be included as a template option.
I have been thinking about this a fair bit over the last few days. It is a difficult usability problem.
Thoughts....
- As discussed above, templates should expand to allow users to select what items they want (for example when putting in a U-cath in a male cat I want vets to choose from a list of 3 available options).
- We in our clinic would like to "force" people to use templates preferentially. One way to practically achieve this may be an option to force templates to appear first in any search. E.g. I search radiographs and the first results that appear are any templates that contain radiographs as an item.
- Templates should be highlighted a different color when searching to differentiate them.
For me, one issue is how to do the 12 hour hospital pain relief charge.
- I still don't have a good answer to how to solve this problem completely. One way would be if you could edit and re-selet items in an already expanded template.
e.g. 12 hour pain relief selected -> expands -> we select 1 methadone and 1 buprenorphine injection -> later vet changes mind and wants 3 methadone injections -> goes back into invoice -> selects template or template item -> edits and changes selection of items.
Issue is that people could still try to just add a new charge rather than editing an already existing template. I don't know how to solve this problem. Perhaps the solution above is actually the answer, however we need limitations on when this is asked. I.e. you only get the prompt to add/merge/skip if the item is the same as one added in the last 12/24 hours (user configurable or even item configurable) and only for those items in that time period. This will reduce the sensitivity to the problem that Matt (and I) worry about.
Thoughts?
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
In 1.9 you can exclude products from direct entry in charges and estimates by ticking the "Use only in Templates" box.
Regarding reselection of template items - this could be done, but some information is lost when nested templates are used. A simplistic approach would delete all of the existing items associated with the main template before adding the new expansion. A more complex approach would reconcile what products are common amongst the original and new expansion and:
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
it is a pity that once you have an invoice, you can't just tick 4 out of 12 items and "delete-all" for the ones selected. The delete one at a time method is a PITA.
I have mentioned elsewhere that having the clinician on the page, before you go to invoice a template will reduce the need to change which clinician has invoiced the charges. At the moment, I use a template, hit add, it expands and then I realise that one of the other vets is getting all the credit as they were on the computer before me and I haven't been prompted earlier, to change the clinician. PITA too!
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
- Multiple line item selection - Agreed. I believe this has been discussed as a project elsewhere but can't find it right now.
- I believe http://www.openvpms.org/project/use-logged-clinician-option this project may address your other issue (would need to double check). We would happily go 50/50 in this project to get this done because the current behavior that you describe drives us nuts and is a real issue for practices that want to accurately track billing and who is writing notes, etc.
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
Multiple line item selection and deletion is now a project here: http://www.openvpms.org/project/multiple-chargeestimate-item-selection-a...
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
Hi,
Just wondering where this was at?
In particular we are keen for Template Expansion Prompting as I am just starting to beef up some of our templates and this would be a super useful addition.
Thanks,
Adrian
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
No progress on this to date. Any changes would also go in after the 1.9 release.
Re: Possible estimate and template enhancements
Hi, that is fine. can we have this costed out at some point for a post 1.9 inclusion. Templates are great. They would be even greater if a version of what is being proposed could be added.