Creating and running a visit
Create a visit, attach services, interviews, and consents, work the visit workspace, and manage visit billing items such as services, copays, and superbills.
A visit in Ona is the container for everything clinical that happens with a patient at a point in time: the summary, vitals, diagnoses, notes, recordings, prescriptions, and the billing that follows. Create it before the appointment, then work inside it during and after.
How do I create a visit?
In the left sidebar, click Visits (1), then click Add New Visit (2) in the top right.
Use Visits (1) to open the list, then Add New Visit (2) to start creating a visit.
The Create New Visit dialog opens with the visit details on the left and three expandable sections on the right. The Add New Visit button (1) is at the bottom.
Use Add New Visit (1) at the bottom to create the visit.
Fill in the left column:
- Title — defaults to "Visit". Replace it with something specific, like "Initial assessment". This is what staff see in the visit list.
- Patient (required) — search by name in the dropdown. If the patient doesn't exist yet, click New patient above the field to create one without leaving the dialog.
- Clinician (required) — pick the clinician the visit is assigned to. You can choose an active or invited clinician.
- Date and Time — set the visit start.
- Timezone — defaults to your workspace timezone. Change it if you're booking across zones.
- Mode — follows the service: its own mode, or In person when it offers both. Choose In person, Video call or No meeting.
- Location — pick a location or a specific room.
- Billing profile — appears when your organization has multiple billing profiles, so you can route the visit through the right one.
- Who pays — choose who pays for the visit. A selected case can make Insurance available here, can set the default choice, and can change the planned authorization notice that appears for the visit.
- Recurrence — when you are creating a series, use the recurrence controls in the dialog to set it up.
Locations are listed with their rooms nested underneath, so you can assign the whole clinic or narrow it to a single room.
Then work through the sections on the right:
- Services — search and select the services being delivered. Services set the visit length and can prefill defaults such as the title, mode, location, and intake tasks. Covered services from a membership can also appear here when you create or edit the visit. Custom ad-hoc lines use server-priced billing details, and the helper text changes when a procedure code is present or when a payer rate label exists. You can edit visit services later from Billing if the services change. Add new service takes you to the Services page if something is missing.
- Consents — select consents to send to the patient, such as Telehealth Consent or Consent to Treatment.
- Interviews — select intake interviews for the patient to complete before the visit.
Click Add New Visit to save. Selected consents, interviews, and forms are sent to the patient unless visit notifications are off for the primary service. In that case, the Pre-visit intake section says "This service's visit notifications are off. Send the links from the visit." and Ona shows Visit created, patient not notified after save. You need to open the patient's record to copy each intake link.
How do I move the visit through its stages?
Open the visit from the Visits list in the left sidebar: click Visits, then click the visit row. Once the visit opens, click the status badge next to the visit title at the top. You can open the visit by clicking anywhere on the row, or by using the ⋮ menu at the end of the row and choosing View details. When the visit has a detail link, the ⋮ menu also includes Open in new tab; you can also Cmd-click, Ctrl-click, Shift-click, or middle-click the row to open it in a new tab.
The options are grouped by stage:
- Pre-visit — Scheduled (1), Confirmed, Checked in (2)
- Visit — In progress (3)
- Post-visit — Completed (4)
- Exceptions — Cancelled, No-show (5)
Set Checked in when the patient arrives, In progress when you start, and Completed when you're done. For Cancelled and No-show, Ona asks you to confirm whether a fee should be charged or waived. Status drives your day view and the completion and no-show figures in Visit activity.
How do I work inside the visit?
Open the visit from the Visits list in the left sidebar: click Visits, then click the visit row to open the visit workspace.
The visit workspace has a left sidebar that jumps to each section. The charting sections appear in your organization's order, and they include Reason for visit, Summary, Vitals, Diagnoses, Observations, Hospitalizations, Surgical history, Family history, Social history, OB/GYN history, Allergies, Medications, Supplements, Vaccines, Recommendations, Notes, Media, Body map, and Procedures when enabled. On phone visits, Summary is hidden.
- Inputs — Recordings, Interviews
- E-prescribing — DoseSpot
- Dispensary — Lab Reports, Lab Orders, and Supplements when labs and supplements are enabled
- Admin — Tasks, Insurance, Referrals, Billing
Summary holds the reason for visit, key clinical points, and assessment and plan. Use Add summary (1) to write one directly. Use Log vitals (2) to add vitals, and use Start recording (3) to capture the conversation for ambient documentation. Use Export visit (4) to produce a copy of the visit record. The button reads Edit once a summary exists. Until then the section shows "Will appear once the visit is completed." On an archived patient or archived visit, the visit is read-only and Add summary is disabled.
Use Log vitals (2) to record vitals, and add clinical detail with Add diagnosis, Add observation, Add allergy, Add medication, Add supplement, and Add recommendation. Add procedure appears when procedures are enabled. Empty sections offer Add manually; Allergies also offers mark no known allergies. On an archived patient or archived visit, these workspace actions are disabled.
The bar at the bottom of the screen controls the visit itself, shows the selected service or package, and links to Billing. What it offers depends on the mode:
- In person — Start recording (3) captures the conversation for ambient documentation.
- Video call — Join a call opens the consultation room, with a button beside it to copy the join link for the patient.
On an archived patient or archived visit, the visit header and bar reflect read-only state and these actions are disabled.
Once you have a recording, open Notes and choose Generate one to draft a note from it.
Open Billing to review visit services, billing quotes, superbills, the patient's payment method, the billing card, and any late-cancellation or no-show fee card above the invoice. In insurance visits, the visit header also shows a coverage chip next to a Balance pill. The Balance dropdown can also surface an open fee invoice path and fee breakdown when a fee was charged. Owners, admins, clinicians, and staff can edit visit services from this page when the visit is not read-only. The services sheet lets you change service lines, units, and custom lines; if billing documents already exist, those documents are not changed by later service edits. On an archived patient or archived visit, billing and service editing are disabled.
Use Superbill in Billing after the visit is checked out or completed. Create superbill freezes a billing snapshot of the visit as a draft. Review the draft, then click Finalize to make the PDF ready. A finalized superbill can be downloaded with Download PDF. If you need to correct it, click Void, enter a reason, and confirm Void superbill; voiding is permanent and the reason stays on the audit record. Users without billing read access see No access, and users without billing write access cannot create, finalize, or void superbills.
When a copay is due, the billing card shows a Copay section above the benefits list. Depending on the payment state, you may see a payment link state with a link row you can withdraw or copy, along with actions such as Collect payment, Collect more, Refund, Keep as credit, Refund from the invoice, and a separate Set copay path. In the collect-copay dialog, the payment label is Paid onsite.
Export at the bottom of the sidebar produces a copy of the visit record.
How do I reschedule or cancel a visit?
Open the visit from the Visits list in the left sidebar: click Visits, then click the visit row. From there, click Reschedule next to the date and location. To cancel or mark a no-show without opening the visit, use the Visit actions (1) menu at the end of the row in the Visits list and choose Mark as cancelled (2), Mark as no-show (3), or Archive (4). Owners, admins, and staff can also select visits from the Visits list and use the bulk bar to Archive active visits or Restore archived visits. Turn on Show archived in the filter sidebar to include archived visits; archived rows show an Archived pill. Archiving cancels calendar events, stops reminders and scheduled intake, and removes visits from the visits list. Restoring returns visits to the visits list and the clinician's calendar, but reminders and intake cancelled on archive aren't sent again. If a cancelled or no-show visit has money collected in advance, the visit may show a prepayment banner with options such as Refund and Keep as credit.
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