“Sign & Save” vs. “Verify & Sign” – What to use when?
Providers who supervise other providers within a clinic may need to review encounter notes left on patients’ eCharts by providers they supervise. OSCAR EMR has the Verify & Sign tool to help with this. This guide details how sign encounter notes with “Sign & Save” and the “Verify & Sign” tool to sign the encounter notes as reviewed.
The encounter notes first have to be signed and saved by a provider using the “Sign & Save” tool, before a supervising provider verifies and signs the notes using the “Verify & Sign” tool.
Sign & Save
After an interaction with a patient is documented in an encounter note in the patient’s eChart, providers can click on the “Sign & Save” button at the bottom (see image below) to sign and save the note.
Clicking on the “Sign & Save” button will append the provider’s signature to the bottom of the encounter note (see image below) and close the patient’s eChart, which means the note is fully saved in the EMR. The provider’s signature can be customized in Preferences (Preferences>Edit Your Signature).
If you signed off on a note for an appointment on the schedule screen, the appointment status icon will have an orange background and on hover it will show Signed:
Sign Save & Bill
When you click the $ dollar sign icon in the eChart, the note will be signed (same as Sign & Save) and you will be taken directly to the billing screen for that encounter. The “Sign Save & Bill” button does exactly the same as the “Sign & Save” except it also takes you to the billing screen directly, instead of closing the chart right away.
Verify & Sign
To verify an encounter note, open the patient’s eChart by either clicking on the “E” on an appointment, on the “E” in the search window or the “E-Chart” option highlighted in blue on the left of the patient’s master file.
The encounter note you are looking to review should have a provider’s signature appended at the bottom, click the “Edit” link (see image below) at the top right of the encounter note, review the note and make changes as needed.
After reviewing the note, click on the “Verify & Sign” button (see image below).
Clicking the “Verify & Sign” button will append the verifying provider’s signature to the bottom of the encounter note and close the patient’s eChart.The encounter note should now be updated with “Verified and Signed on (date and time) by (verifying provider’s name)” at the bottom (see image below).
If you verified a note for an appointment on the schedule screen, the appointment status icon will have an orange background and on hover it will show Verified:
