Managing Favorites

eLabs contains information about numerous diagnoses, tests, and insurance carriers. However, you might typically use only a few of them. To ensure that you do not have to spend time searching for the appropriate one when you place an order, you can identify your favorites and group them in any way that you prefer. For example, for diagnoses, you might create one group for infectious diseases, one for circulatory system diseases, one for respiratory system diseases, and so forth. For tests, you might create one group for routine tests, one for specialized tests, and so forth. Each group can contain an unlimited number of favorites. You can also specify which group should be the default group (that is, which group opens automatically when you place an order for that client).

If you can access multiple clients, you can have different favorites for each one, or you can create a single set of favorites for all of the clients that you can access.

You can customize your groups of favorites either before you place any orders (via the Favorites Maintenance page) or during order entry. Both approaches offer similar capabilities, but only the Favorites Maintenance page enables you to create a single set of favorites for multiple clients simultaneously or copy a group. Only the Order Entry pages enable you to set the default group. In addition, for labs that support this feature, only the Order Entry pages enable you to copy tests from a specialty grid (that is, a predefined collection of tests grouped by medical specialty, such as gynecology or urology).

Notes:  

You can manage your favorites only if you can place orders with your current lab.

During order entry, hospital staff members can manage their favorite diagnoses only if Bill Type is set to Patient or Insurance. (By default, it is set to Client.)

You can have up to 20 groups. The Client Favorites, Recently Ordered, and Patient Specific groups count toward that maximum. In addition, for generic labs, although you can define up to 20 groups via the legacy Order Entry page, you can see only the first eight groups when you manage your favorite generic tests.

If you add a test to your favorites, and that test subsequently becomes unavailable for that client or lab, the test will not appear among your favorites until access is restored.

For some labs, the same test can be associated with multiple order codes. For example, a complete blood count (CBC) might be associated with both codes 6399 and 42A. However, only one code is considered the primary code; all others are considered alternate codes.

Your favorites can include only primary codes. If you try to add an alternate code to your favorites, the primary code will be added instead. If the primary code already exists in the group, a message advises you that the code is already included.

Alternate order codes in your lists of favorites can also be automatically converted to primary codes by an administrator.

For non-electronic labs, you might have to add client-defined tests to the system manually before you can add them to your favorites.

You cannot add custom profiles to your favorites via the streamlined Order Entry page.

You can set a default carrier group only via the streamlined Order Entry page.

You cannot use the name Custom Carriers for a carrier group. That name is reserved for internal use.

If no group is set as the default group, the first defined group opens automatically. However, if diagnoses are associated with the patient, the Patient Specific group opens automatically rather than the first defined group.

With the Favorites Maintenance page, you can add any type of carrier (standard, custom, or generic) to your favorites, as long as the specified client can use that carrier. With the Order Entry page, you cannot add generic or custom carriers. In addition, any favorite generic carriers will not appear on the streamlined Order Entry page, since that page does not support generic orders.

You can also add favorite diagnoses via the Limited Coverage Policy Lookup page.