From time to time, you may be required to record in Gentu that a patient will no longer be attending the practice, due to varying reasons. When this happens, rather than delete the patient's record, we would recommend marking the patient as inactive. 

Marking a patient as inactive will retain all of their information within Gentu, however it will hide their record from the Patient List, and when searching in the global search bar.

When to mark a patient as inactive

There are many different reasons why you may want to mark a patient as inactive. Here are a few examples:

• If the patient has moved away
• If the patient has told you that they will be visiting another practice
• If the patient has passed away (in which case, you would use the 'Deceased' option instead which works in the same way)
• If you have two patient records for the same patient

Mark a patient as inactive

To mark a patient as inactive, you will need to open their patient record, and tick the Inactive (do not contact) tick-box in the General section. If a patient has sadly passed away, then you would use the Deceased tick-box instead, and enter the date of their passing.

Once a patient has been marked as inactive, they will be hidden from the Patient List. If you ever want to search for a patient who has been marked as inactive, you will need to tick the "Show Deceased or Inactive" tick-box in the Patient List window before searching.  

FAQ

> Why does the patient not come up when I search?

If a patient has been marked as inactive, then you must search for them within the Patient List instead of the global search bar, and the "Show Deceased or Inactive" tick-box must also be ticked.

> What happens to the patient's outstanding debt when they are marked as Inactive?

The outstanding debt will remain within the Unresolved Invoices report. You are still able to receipt or void any invoices for inactive patients through the Unresolved Invoices report, or from within the patient's record. Remember that if you want to access an invoice for an inactive patient through their patient record, you will need to open the Patient List, and tick the "Show Deceased or Inactive" tick-box before searching.