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These release notes are for information purposes only - All details shown below describe changes made after the PPS v4.0.64 release. All PPS Support Contract Holders are able to download and install the latest version of the software. If you wish to upgrade your software package and you do not have a Support Contract then please contact the Sales Department on 0845 0680 777 and choose Option 1.
Administration / Set Up
Option to restrict the entering of payment records into PPS. Using a "number of days" setting, the payment date must be within the last n days. This setting applies to all PPS users, but the PPS System Administrator can override this and enter payments for any date.
Cash Desk
Cash desk will now show the Quantity in the description column if the Quantity is greater than 1 (or less than zero).
Activity Templates
New option for HTML-style E-Mails. PPS now includes a new HTML E-Mail design wizard. This allows you to build professional looking HTML-style E-Mails including graphics, font styles and footer text. This option is available from the E-Mail tab on the activity template screen. You can use the designer to either build a fixed HTML E-Mail layout (similar to current HTML-style E-Mails), or you can use the wizard when you send and E-Mail to a client or third party. This means that you can edit the mesage body text of an HTML-style E-Mail before sending it.
The Activity Templates list has a new option to allow you to search for all or part of a word in you list of activity template headings. The search box is located in the bottom left of the screen. This is useful is you have a large number of templates.
New HTML-Style E-Mail activity templates - new Merge Field button available is HTML Wizard.
E-Mails
When auto-processing E-Mails, follow-ups assigned to the template are not being created. This has been corrected.
Label printing
When printing labels to 3rd parties and spooling to print later, the 3rd party name now appears correctly on the print spool preview.
Letters
When auto-processing letters using KingSoft Office (rather than MS Word) - error 1426. This has been corrected.
Mailshots
Change to the Mailshot process of printing letters using KingSoft Office rather than MS Office. Some errors were being caused and these have been corrected.
New option to "Tick all as done" when you right-click on the list of e-mails, letters or SMS messages "sent" column on the mail "process your mailshot" screen.
Merge Fields
Where merge fields are used in the "Subject" of an email. these are not resolving correctly for automated emails such as Appointment Booking Confirmations, Up-coming Appointment Reminders and Appointment Follow-up Reminders.
the Appointments merge fields have been swapped around in the list so that the "This Appointment" set of fields is now above the "Next Appointment" fields in the list.
Processing Activities - New option to Re-Assign
On the "Process your activities" screen that shows the list of activities to process in each category, a new button allows you to quickly "Re-Assign" the currently selected activity to another system user (or to PPS Activity Manager if installed).
Diary Display
When filtering the diary by location, any notes entered before the start of a session that is not currently displayed (excluded via the filter) are now displayed in the correct time position on the diary rather than at the end of the non-displayed session.
You can now quickly hide the display of existing client names on the appointments diary. To do this there is a shortcut button at the bottom left of the diary screen next to the existing diary display buttons. You can use this to quickly hide the display of all client names if your diary screen is viewed or can be seen by your clients. Toggle this button on and off as required.
Marking Appointments as Being Seen
Further to the change made in version 4.0.6401, the automated marking of appointments as "being seen" is now a system-wide option under Tools-Options-Appointments Diary Options. This means that if you do not wish to use this feature you can now disable it.
Searching for Client Appointment
The search option on the diary to search for an existing client appointment will now also search the contents of any notes entered against the appointment. This is partly in preparation for "PPS Online Booking" where appointments booked by patients via your web site will be given a booking reference that will be in the Appointments Notes.
When searching for an existing client appointment, the option to include or exclude DNA appointments is now stored so that next time you search it remembers your setting.
Accessing Clinical Notes
Occasional error caused when opening clinical notes from the diary. this error is caused by a recent change to PPS in beta version 4.0.6401 and is fixed in this release.
Marking Appointments as Being Seen
When opening the consultation screen from the diary, if the current PPS user is the practitioner associated with the appointment, and the time of the appointment is current (or in the past), then if the appointment is not currently marked as "being seen" it will be changed to "being seen" status when the consultation screen is opened.
Client Images
Client Images now also show in the client log screen. You must have client images selected under Tools - Options - General System Options.
Main client Details Screen
DOB heading mis-aligned (hidden) on client details screen - this has been corrected.
Main Client Details Screen
Changes to Client Salutation. Further checks now made when changing a client's title or surname to see if the client salutation also needs to be changed.
Clinical Notes Symbols and Texts
The drop-list selection box to show your various symbol and text sets on the consulation screen is currently restricted to being the same height as the toolbar in which it sits. This has been changed to show the list options at full height.
Completing Consultations for DNA Appointments
If you access the consultation notes from an appointment marked as DNA, if you enter some notes and complete the appointment it is currently being marked as "Completed". There is now the option to allow you to leave the appointment as DNA instead.
Consultation History
Custom Form Bodychart image thumbnail not always displaying in consultation history section. Only a problem since previous beta version. This has been corrected.
Consultation Screen
The consultation history now includes DNA appointments associated with the treatment episode.
Custom Forms
New option to include calculated fields on your custom form. To set up a calculated field, add a "Numeric" type question to your form, then use the Options button to specify a formula for each no of columns you have set. Formulas follow basic mathmatical principles and the desired other question on your form to use in the formula is referred to via a "Q" plus the question number on the form. Form example, if question 3 on the form is the sum of question 1 and 2, then add a numeric type question to the form then use the Options button and enter the formula as "Q1 + Q2" (without the quotes). The Average of questions 1 and 2 would be "(Q1 + Q2) / 2" (again, without the quotes). Standard maths notation can be used such as the characters + - / * ( ). Normal mathmatical rules for brackets apply. Each time a value is entered on your form, the formula question will be recalculated.
When adding new questions to custom forms, the "merge field options" are set to default from the previously added question. this has been changed so that they default to "blank".
Correction to error being casued by selecting to open a new body chart diagram on a custom form.
New options: 1) to allow question headings to be displayed in a Bold font. 2) to allow question headings to be optionally Left Justified.
Previewing Documents
Change to the "attached document" image previewer in the consultation screen to allow documents to be previewed when your database is on a mapped network path. Currently a mapped network path is not resolving the file location correctly for preview purposes.
Setting up Custom Forms
Selecting to copy a question from another form has been changed to make it more reliable (due to some index key conflicts on some older forms).
Treatment Episodes
Treatment Episode details now include a "Referral Reference" field. This can be used if your referring party gives you a reference number.
Treatment Episodes - Counting No. of Consultations
The automated counting up of number of consultations per treatment episodes now no longer includes DNA appointments. This has been addressed in the past, but has now been further updated.
Client Images
PPS Now includes a useful utility to select, rotate and crop images when selecting a "client" image. To use this you must have client images selected under Tools - Options - General System Options. When you click on the client image icon on the main client details screen (and other screens that the client image appears on) you can select your image (this can be directly from your camera). You can then crop and rotate your image before saving.
New Options for PPS Online Booking
New fields have been added to the PPS System Users table, the Location lookup table and the Appointment Types lookup table. These fields will be used for PPS Online Booking and control how details are displayed on your web site during the booking process.
PPS Help Menu
Changes to layout and wording of options on the PPS Help menu including the wording of the menu option to access your on-line PPS account.
PPS Online Help
The menu option of the PPS Help menu for "PPS Help and Support Online" has now been removed. You can access online help with either the Function key F1 or from the PPS Help menu - Help.
PPS Registration
Improvements made to the auto-registration update process. This means that if your registration file has expired or is about to expire an auot-update check is now in place to renew your registration file automatically if necessary.
PPS Support - Remote Access
New option on the PPS Help menu for Remote Access This will allow you to launch the "Teamviewer" application to allow our support team to access your PC. This mean that most PPS Users will no longer have to use our web site to download the "Teamviewer" link when our support team are providing remote support. This option does NOT automatically allow us access to your PC. You still have to provide us with the code number before we are granted access.
PPS Task Bar
When custominsing the PPS Task Bar options, extra checks are now in place to ensure that you do not select the same foreground and background colours. In addition, the current taskbar settings were saving the task bar text and background (incorrectly) as white. This has also been corrected.
Setting Up PPS / Tools Menu
Change to the working on the Appointments Diary Options screen - Reminders tab. For up-coming appointments and follow-up reminders, the "how to process" heading has been changed to "how to schedule".
When reindexing PPS and using PPS Sync Server - improvements to the auto-pausing of sync server to include restarting PPS Sync Server if the reindex fails for any reason.
Changes to the SMS Account Set Up screen to correct an occasional error when updating your existing account details.
System Audit
More details are now recorded in the system audit. this includes specific details when new records are inserted plus a full record snapshot for any records that are deleted.
User Access Permissions
New option to allow you to switch off "drag and drop" functionality on the appointments diary. This can be done per user in their "Access settings" under the main "list of system users".
Using PPS
Update to the "Tree View" controls used on several forms including the Client Log, Consultation Screen and Activity Templates. this does not change any functionality but simply updates these new controls to a new version.
Minor addition to the "Tree View" controls update in 4.0.6403 that was not fully completed.
Since beta release 4.0.6404 - error caused when accessing consultation screen. Occurs when treatment has letters attached. This has been corrected.
Activities Report
New option to include activity "notes" on the report. Also included in criteria selection.
Favourite Reports
Occasionally "report breakdown selections" are not loaded from a favourite report - this has been corrected.
Accounts
The PPS Accounts system includes facilities for you to bill your clients, or third parties, record payments received, and manage all invoices that are overdue for payment. In addition, PPS also offers an additional module called PPS Expense that can be used to record details of practice expenditure. The Accounts system in PPS is not designed to be a full accounts system with ledgers, balance sheets, etc. but it can be used to supply revenue and expenditure information directly to another accounts system by way of exporting the information through reports.
PPS Accounts billing is structured into three areas: Charges, Invoices and Payments. Firstly Charges must be created, then an invoice produced, then a payment recorded. A Charge, or charges simply become “line items” on an invoice, and a payment recorded is “allocated” to the invoice. PPS is flexible enough to accommodate all requirements for practice billing including third-party billing, split billing (between client and third party), recording several payments against one invoice, or recording one payment against several invoices. There are various points throughout PPS that enable charges to be quickly created and “paid off” in one step. This single step still produces the correct Charge, Invoice and Payment records. Activities
Activities in PPS are a way of keeping a record of contacts, telephone calls, letters, etc. that you have with your Clients or Third-Party contacts. Activities can all have a specific PPS User, and Practitioner assigned to them, and can be scheduled for completion in the future or immediately. Activities appear in the Client Log for each client, as well as on the Activities List and the Task List. A System of colours is used to denote activities that are: Due – Green; Not yet due – Orange; Completed – Purple and Overdue (task list only) – Red.
See Also: Activities – Activity Types Add
Look this up under the type of new record you want to add – e.g. Client - Add or Appointment - Add Administrator
See: System Administrator Appointment
An Appointment is an entry in the Appointments Diary for a client. When you set up your diary, you are setting up the free appointment slots. You then book Appointments into these free slots. Each Appointment can be marked with a status, represented by a colour, to show that the client has arrived for their appointment (green), is currently being seen by the practitioner (orange) or the appointment is completed (purple). You can also mark an appointment as DNA (did not attend) and select a reason why the client has not attended – these are marked in red. When booking an appointment on the diary, this is normally done by highlight a free slot then selecting to add the new appointment. When doing this, the appointment details such as date, time, duration, diary user, treatment room, etc. are already known and you do not have to enter them. Appointments Diary
The PPS Appointments Diary allows you to record your client appointments, and manage your available appointment times. There are a variety of diary view styles to suit your needs including single day, whole week, single or multiple users etc. You can access the PPS Appointments Diary from the PPS Menu: Appointments – Appointments Diary, or by pressing Ctrl-A on the Keyboard. You can also click on Appointments, or Diary on the Task Bar. The diary has a toolbar to give you access to common functions such as adding appointments, and when the diary is displayed, clicking on an item in the task bar, or selecting from the PPS menu will normally be related to the currently highlighted appointment. For example, if an appointment for Mrs Smith is highlighted, then clicking on the Accounts option on the task bar will show the accounts screen for Mrs Smith.
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A Practitioner on the PPS Appointments Diary is referred to as a “Diary User”. This is to allow the diary to be used by more people than just Practitioners in your practice. You can select to set up and use your diary either by Diary Users, or by Treatment Rooms – this can suit they way that you are used to booking your clients into the diary.
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See below for further detailed information relating to the various Appointments Diary functions in PPS. Audit
PPS maintains an audit of all updates made to the database in several key areas. As further developments take place to PPS, these areas will be expanded to include database updates in all areas of PPS. Currently, audit details are recorded for the following areas: Appointments, Client Details, Clinical Notes, and Activities. The audit details captured will allow the PPS system administrator to make audit enquiries to see which PPS user has carried out which updates to the database, and precisely when. This audit enquiry option will be available in the near future. In the meantime, support staff at PPS are able to extract all the required information from your audit should a serious need arise. Being Seen
See: Appointment - Being Seen Body Chart
See: Chart Breakdown
This is a term used on all PPS Reports. When you run a report, you can select to breakdown the results into groups or categories. Most PPS reports allow you to breakdown to two levels. The breakdown category will have it’s own heading and sub-totals on the report. For example, if you select to breakdown your report by Practitioner, then each practitioner will have their own heading on the report, with the report results shown for that practitioner underneath the heading. At the end of the report results for that Practitioner, there will be a sub-total line showing totals for that Practitioner. Typically an accounts/revenue report could be broken down by Month then Practitioner. This means that each Month will have its own section on the report (and its own sub-total line) and then within each month, the report will show one section per practitioner. Using a breakdown on most reports is optional. Cash DeskPPS Cash Desk is a “point-of-sale” type screen that can be used to quickly create charges, invoices and payments all in one step. You can access the Cash Desk screen directly from anywhere in PPS either from the PPS Menu: Accounts – Cash Desk, or by using the F11 key on the keyboard. When the screen displays, make sure that the client and practitioner are selected. If you launch Cash Desk by clicking on an appointment in the diary first, then these details will be shown already. The Cash Desk screen shows chargeable items (consultation fees or stock items) in the top right corner of the screen – There six “quick buttons” that show the first six items in your list. To access more items, use the <More> button. You can either click on one these buttons to select this charge item, or enter the charge code directly into the “Enter Code” field. When you have added as many charges as you want, then use the <Payment> button. The Six buttons in the top right now show your first six most common payment methods – use the <More> button to see further payment methods. Select the required payment method and confirm the payment amount. When you are done, you simply click the <Save> button, and select if you want to print and invoice/receipt. You can set up which charge code items appear in the list, and which payment methods appear in the list. To do this select from the PPS Menu: Tools – Look Up Tables, and select either the “List of Standard Charges and Stock Items” or “Payment Methods” table from the Accounts Tables section. Both of these have a “Cash Desk Order” entry that determines what order this item appears in the six quick buttons on the Cash Desk screen. You can also apply Discounts and use Vouchers on cash desk, and even use it to bill third parties, even after the client has paid a portion of the bill already. Change
See: Cash Desk; Modify Client
Client records are the hub of your PPS database. PPS refers to these records as “Clients” rather than “Patients” because PPS is used across a variety of business and clinical disciplines, some of whom use the term “client” and others use “patient”. A client record can have either minimal details entered, such as first name and surname, or can be a comprehensive range of details including full address/contact details, alternative addresses, DOB, sex, “known as”, full profile details including “source of introduction”, occupation (plus a range of entries you can set up yourself). In addition you can associate a variety of third-parties to clients such as doctors, insurance companies, etc. The more comprehensive the details you store for each client, the greater the opportunities to use these details in your reports and mail-merge operation. For example, by recording the “source of introduction” for each client (such as yellow pages, local advert, recommendation, etc.) you can run almost any report in PPS to show a breakdown by “source of introduction”, for example “practice revenue” by “source of introduction” will show where you earn the most money from – thus where you should concentrate most on your advertising! Clinical Notes
The Clinical Notes facility in PPS is available in the “Professional” version of PPS. This includes screens to record your Clinical Notes, manage Treatment Episodes, complete specific forms (Custom Forms) including body charts and your own questionnaires, etc. All Clinical Notes are structured into the framework of Treatment Episodes. Although some of you may be used to slightly different terminology, PPS uses “Treatment Episode” to define a specific course of treatment for a specific condition, and “Consultation” as the individual treatment sessions/consultations. Therefore each time you see a client – whether or not it is an initial consultation/assessment or a follow up treatment – this is known as a “Consultation”. You can have more than one current Treatment Episode per client if required. When you select to record clinical notes, PPS checks to see if there are any current (not completed) Treatment Episodes for the client. If there is more than one, you can choose which one to record your consultation notes for. Otherwise a new Treatment Episode will be started, and this consultation will be consultation number one for the new Treatment Episode. When you complete the consultation, you can enter set up the full details of the Treatment Episode including the name, number of consultations required, diagnosis details etc. See: Treatment Episode for more details. For more detailed information about recording clinical notes and consultations, see: various entries under Consultation and Custom Forms. Code
See: Charge – Code; Diagnosis Code; Outcome Code Columns
See: Appointments Diary - Columns Complete
The term “Complete” is used in PPS for both Appointments and Consultations. You can select to Complete an Appointment – where is it marked in Purple, and you can then raise the charge, book another appointment, etc., and you can Complete a Consultation – where you can decide if the Treatment Episode is completed, or how many more consultations are required, you can raise the charge, produce a Discharge Letter etc. The term “Complete” is also used for Treatment Episodes that have an “End Date” entered – see: Completed Episodes. Consultation
PPS uses the term “consultation” to define each time you see a client, whether or not it is an initial session, or a follow up one. PPS has a clinical notes system that allows you to record Consultation notes each time you see a client, and these are all part of a Treatment Episode. If you see a client once, and their treatment is completed in one consultation, then the Treatment Episode will only have one consultation. If, alternatively, you see a client six times before the treatment for the presenting problem is complete, then the “one” treatment episode will have “six” consultations. To access the clinical notes system in PPS, either select from the PPS Menu: Client – Consultation, or click Consultation on the PPS Task bar. You can select an appointment, or client record first if required to give immediate access to the consultation screen for that client. Copy
When entering text into any field, you can highlight the text and use the standard Windows™ “Copy” option to place the text on the Windows clipboard. You can then paste the text back into any similar field. See also: Appointment – Copy. Criteria
See: Report Wizard - Criteria Custom Form
A Custom Form is part of the PPS Clinical Notes system. When you record a consultation record, you can also record one or more Custom Forms as part of that consultation. The term “Custom Form” is a very general term because there is a very wide range of uses for Custom Forms. They can be used for specific assessments, such as a “biomechanics” assessment, also for special questionnaires you may use as part of your consultation, or to record the results of specific examinations you carry out. A Custom Form can include as few or many questions/entries as you want, including using Charts for annotation purposes. There are a variety of question “types” available including Dates, Numeric, Text, Multiple Choice, etc. For more details about Custom Forms, see: various entries under Custom Form. Custom Forms
See: Custom Form Database
The PPS Database can be stored in a separate location on your computer/network from the main PPS application files. This would apply to a PPS installation on a network where the PPS Application files are installed onto each computer, and the database is located centrally on the network. There is the option to change the database location as part of the initial installation of PPS, and there is also a separate “database only” installation available if the database is to be installed onto a computer such as a server where PPS will not be used on that computer – servers often reside in a “back office” and are not used as a desktop computer. Details
This is a generic term used to describe the information stored in any particular part of PPS. For example Main Client Details is the information you enter to this screen. In addition, there are several “notes” type fields that allow you to enter further “free text” details against a record – these are also sometimes referred to as Details. Diary
See: Appointments Diary DNA
PPS uses the acronym DNA (did not attend) as a generic term for all appointments where the client did not attend. Some of you may only be used to using the term DNA for certain types of “failures to attend” but PPS uses DNA for all types. You can mark an appointment as DNA on the diary. This then allows several further options: You can allocate a Reason for Non-attendance, create a charge for the non-attendance, and select to Re-Open the appointment slot. For more details, see: Appointment – DNA. EMail
E-Mails in PPS are part of the PPS Activities system. You can send E-Mails directly from within PPS. This is dependant upon your computer being configured to use Microsoft® Outlook or Outlook Express to send e-mails. To send an e-mail, either select from the PPS Menu: Activities – Send an E-Mail, or click on Send an E-Mail on the PPS Task Bar. You can also select the <New> button from the Activities List. The Send an E-Mail screen allows you to select either a client (the client you are currently working with is automatically selected) or a third party. You can type in the subject and body of the e-mail message, and you can attach a document to the e-mail. Like all PPS Activity records, the e-mail can be scheduled to send later if required by setting the due date/time.
See also: Client – E-Mail Address Form
See: Custom Form Hide
See: Charts - Annotations History
See: Medical History Images
See: Charts; Document Library. Include
This is a term used in the PPS Reports Wizard – on step 3 of the selections for your report. On most reports you can select to “include” a selection of details on the printed report. You can un-tick any items that you do not want to include. The “Include” options only apply when the report is printed or previewed – if you are exporting the report to a file or mail merge, then the “include” options do not apply. Labels
Labels in PPS are Address labels that you can print and use on envelopes if you do not use window envelopes. Labels are an activity type. When you prepare a label, it can either be printed now or later. PPS Prints to either a dedicated label printer such as the DYMO LabelWriter™ or standard A4 label sheet layout which is 2 across by 8 down. The Avery™ label code for this style of label sheet is L7162. PPS has a label print spool that can be used to print a whole A4 sheet of labels at once, by accumulating individual labels gradually until a whole page is full. Alternatively you can also print a single label on an A4 sheet in any position, so you can run a single A4 sheet through your printer several times printing one or two labels in selected positions each time. To prepare a single label to print now or later, select from the PPS Menu: Activities – Prepare a Label. You can also print many labels at once by selecting “Labels” as the output from a PPS Report. To do this, select from the PPS Menu: Reports – PPS Reports & Mail Merge, then select a suitable report that will produce a list of client names and addresses to prepare labels for such as Client Lists. Run the report through the Report Wizard, and in the report output options select Main Merge. Then on the Mail Merge output screen select Labels. You can also print appointment details on a label when booking a new appointment. Letters
Letters are an activity type in PPS. You can select at any time to send a letter to either a client or a third-party. You can send a letter either by selecting from the PPS Menu: Activities – Send a Letter, or by selecting “Send a Letter” from the PPS Task Bar. In addition you can also select to send a letter as part of your clinical notes recording. When you send a letter, you have the choice of either selecting a standard letter from your list of standard PPS letters (see: Standard Letters), or by simply typing your letter using the PPS letter editor before printing and sending. Letters can either be sent now or scheduled to be sent in the future. If you are using Microsoft® Word to print your letters, then your list of standard letters (which can include very simple templates that simply have the client’s address/salutation details at the top) will include letters that you have set up in Word. If you are sending a letter as part of a Mail Merge output from a PPS Report, then this will be a PPS letter. To do a mail merge using a Word letter, you will have to produce a “File” output from the PPS mail merge output screen, and do the mail merge separately and completely in Word. Line
See: Charts - Annotations List
List is the term used to describe information that either appears on the screen or on a report in rows and columns. The term List is also used in PPS as a list of items such as menu, or list of entries such as a look up table. See also: List style diary. Location
A Location in PPS is a physical clinic location. Older versions of PPS referred to treatment rooms as locations. Now Treatment Rooms are an additional field of information. You can set up locations to use in your PPS Appointments Diary. You can set up your diary for diary users/practitioners to be scheduled to work either in specific treatment rooms and/or locations on various days during the week. You do not have to use “Location” if you only work from one location. To set up locations, select from the PPS Menu: Tools – Look Up Tables, and select Location from the Appointments Diary Tables section. Here you can set up your various locations, and nominate a colour to each location to make each location clearly identifiable in the diary. Log
See: Client Log. Merge Field
A Merge Field is used when preparing Standard PPS Letters, or sending a one-off letter to a client or third-party. There are a variety of Merge Fields to choose from including Name, Address, Date, Practitioner, etc. When a merge field is included in a standard letter (or you insert a merge field into a one-off letter) then the merge field entry is replaced with the “real” value for the selected client. Merge Fields are shown with the field name enclosed in double chevrons thus: <<SURNAME>>. When the letter is printed, this value is replaced with the actual client’s surname. You can insert Merge Fields when you are setting up standard PPS letters – see: Standard Letters for more details. Network
You can run PPS on your PC Local Area Network. If you need to run PPS across a “wide network” or across the internet, then you will need to talk to your PPS supplier for details of how to do this.
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If you would like to run PPS on your local network, then make sure that your PPS licence includes the appropriate number of “concurrent” users required (the number of users who can log into PPS at the same time). Extra concurrent licences can be purchased from your PPS Supplier. You are sent a new PPS Registration File each time you purchase more licences.
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In order to install PPS on a PC on your network, first make sure that the location that the main PPS database is installed is “shared” on the network, and allows “other users to update files”. Doing this ensures that the “network installation” of PPS can locate the database across the network and successfully log into the database.
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Also See: Installation New
Look up this under the type of new record – e.g. appointment - new Notes
See: Client - Default Notes Entry Open
Some screens in PPS have an “Open” button on the toolbar, this is very similar to the Modify button as it will “open” the selected record for “modification”. Options
PPS has a screen on the PPS Tools menu called Options. This screen can be used to set up a wide variety of system settings that affect the way that PPS works. You can make your changes to these areas and press the OK or Apply button to save your changes. The Options screen has four tabs along the top: General, Custom Client Fields, Set Up Client Contacts, and Clinical Notes. See the entries under each of these sections for more details, for example Options – General. Payment
A Payment in PPS is recorded when money is received from clients or third-parties. A payment must be allocated to an invoice – either immediately or in the future. If a payment is received in advance (a pre-payment) for consultations or treatment that has not yet been carried out, then the payment can be allocated to the invoice in the future when the invoice is raised. Payments are either recorded using a specific PPS screen to “record a payment”, or are automatically recorded when an invoice or charge is raised and “marked as paid”. If payments are received from third-parties, then these are recorded on the third-parties own accounts screen where the invoices to the third party will appear. If payments are received from clients, the these are recorded on the client’s own accounts screen. PPS
PPS is the acronym for “Private Practice Software”. Practitioner
A practitioner in PPS is a system user. To add a practitioner to PPS, you need to add a new system user, and indicate that they are a practitioner as part of their user details. When a user is a practitioner, they appear on the list of practitioners to select to allocate to most PPS records. PPS allocates a practitioner to most types of records so that you can see which practitioner is responsible for that record, also you can break down most report in PPS by practitioner. Preview
See: Reports – Report Output PrintYou can print various types of information in PPS including client details, clinical notes, Invoices, letters, and a wide variety of reports. All printing in PPS is done using your standard Windows printer driver for your selected printer. Many screens in PPS have a <Print> button that is used to print details for that part of the system. See also: Reports – Report Output. Printing
See: Print Quantity
When creating a charges record, or using PPS Cash Desk, you can enter a quantity with your charge details. Use this if you need to create a charge for more than one of the same item. The Quantity entry appears on the “Create a Charge” screen. On PPS Cash desk you can use the <Quantity>button for any charge item. To use a quantity of more than one, first enter the quantity, then press the quantity button, then enter the charge code. Other parts of PPS that create charges such as the Appointment Complete screen or the Consultation Complete screen always use a quantity of 1. this cannot be changed on these screens. Referral
This is a Look up Table that is used on the Treatment Episode details. The list can be used to help you categorise your sources of referral for each treatment episode in order to make your clinical notes reports more meaningful. You can set up your list of referral sources by selecting from the PPS Menu: Tools – Look up Tables, and selecting Referral from the Clinical Notes Tables section. You do not have to use the Referral entry on your Treatment Episode details if you do not want to. The Referral entry selected for each treatment episode is stored separately to the Source of Introduction on the Main Client Details screen. This is so that you can not only monitor where your clients initially heard about your clinic from , but also where your repeat business comes from. Registration
See Also : PPS Registration; Client – Registration Reminders
See: Activities; Appointment - Reminders Reports
PPS includes many different reports that you can run that present information accumulated from various parts of the system. There are two main reports options: Summaries and Statistics, and PPS Reports and Mail Merge. In addition to these two main options, there is a variety of other print-outs that you can produce from PPS that are not included in the category of reports. These include: Printing the Diary, Client Details, Medical History and Clinical Notes. You can access the PPS reports options from the PPS Menu: Reports. For more details about the Statistics & Summaries type reports, see: Statistics & Summaries. When you select the PPS Reports & Mail Merge option, a reports selection screen appears – this screen is divided into the various categories of reports that you can run. Most reports (certainly client-based reports) can also be used for mail merge purposes. Select a report from any of the categories and use either the Run option (see: Reports – Run) or the Open option (see: reports – Open). When you select Open, you will be guided through the Report Wizard (see: Report Wizard) to allow you to make your specific selections for the report before choosing a report output option (see: Reports – Report Output). See also: various entries in this reference guide under Reports for further details. For details of individual reports, see: the entry under the report name, for example Charges Report or Aged Debtors Report. Salutation
In PPS, this is how you refer to someone in a letter. This applies to Clients and Third-Party contacts. You can enter the salutation on the Main Client Details screen for each of your clients – some clients you may prefer to use their title and surname and others that you know better you may use their first name. The same applies to Third-Party contacts where an individual’s name is used (instead of just a Company name). You can use “Salutation” as a “merge field” when setting up or sending letters. There is a Salutation field available for Clients, and one for each Third-Party contact types (insurance companies, clubs, etc.) When a letter is printed using the Salutation merge field, the field is replaced with the Salutation entry, if no entry is made into the Salutation field, then the Client Title and Surname is used to replace the merge field. Search
You can search for various records in PPS: Clients, Appointments, Third-Party contacts etc. Some screens include a <Search> button on the toolbar. The main PPS Client Search screen includes options to search on a variety of fields: for example Surname. This screen can be accessed from the Search Button on any of the client screens (main details, log, browse) or by clicking “Search” on the PPS Task Bar. The Search screen allows you to enter all or part of a value into a selected field, then when you press Enter a list of results that match what you have typed in is displayed. The most common information to search on is Surname. In the Surname field on the search screen, it is possible to enter all or part of the surname followed by a space, then all or part of the client’s First Name. This way you can narrow down your search results – useful with popular surnames. For example, you can search for Joe Smith simply by entering SMI J in the Surname field and pressing enter. All clients whose surname starts with SMI and whose First Name starts with J will be listed.
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You can search for existing Client Appointments or Free Appointment Slots using the <Search> button on the Appointments Diary – see: Appointments Diary – Search for more details. Select
A term used when you choose something on the screen. Some PPS screens have a <Select> button, this normally means that you pick an option, or entry in a list, then click the <Select> button. This will “select” your chosen entry and proceed to the next screen, or return to the previous screen with your chosen entry selected. Set Up
See: Medical History – Setting Up; PPS – Setting Up; Custom Form – Maintenance; Users – Setting Up; Letterhead – Set Up Status
See: Client Status Surname
See: Client - Surname Sync
See: PPS Sync Task Bar
The PPS Task Bar is a tool bar that is positioned down the left hand side of the main PPS screen. It contains a calendar that can be used to navigate the Diary and the Daily List, and has quick access to various parts of PPS via Icons, headings and Prompts that can be clicked with the mouse. If your screen resolution is too small, then the icons are removed and just the Headings and prompts remain. You can switch the task bar on and off by selecting from the PPS menu: View – Task Bar. Time
See: Activities – Time; Appointments – Time Toolbar
Many screens in PPS have a toolbar. This is a selection of “buttons” that can be clicked to perform tasks specific to that screen, or used to launch other screens. Sometimes a toolbar button requires that you select something on the screen first before pressing the button – for example selecting an item from a list before pressing the <Delete> button to delete the selected item. Toolbar Buttons will normally have “tips” that show when the mouse is placed over the button, the tip can give a further indication of what the button does. Tools Menu
Options on the Tools menu are listed alphabetically in this reference guide under each Section e.g. Look Up Tables. Treatment Episode
All clinical notes in PPS are stored within the framework of Treatment Episodes; each time you see a client, this is a Consultation – one or more Consultations form a Treatment Episode. This allows you to see a client several times within the same Treatment Episode. Depending upon the nature of your business, it may be the case that each time you see a client this is a separate treatment episode, so the episode is “Started” and “Completed” all within the same consultation. It is possible to undertake more than one treatment episode for a client at the same time. If a client is currently in a treatment episode when you start a new consultation, you can select to start a new treatment episode from the Consultation Screen. If a client has more than one current treatment episode, then when you start a consultation, you can select which treatment episode that this consultation is for. A Treatment Episode in PPS includes a range of details that you can enter to give you a wide range of options for your reporting and statistics analysis. In addition to the Start and End dates of an episode, you can also categorise your diagnosis, treatment, outcome and discharge details, as well as entering certain information about the presenting problem such as Acute/Chronic, Time Present, etc. This is designed to assist you with your follow up consultations, as these details are displayed at the top of the Consultation screen while you are entering your consultation notes. Word
See: Microsoft® Word
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