Sending & Receiving Electronic Letters

 If you have subscribed to a third party carrier service such as Healthlink, Argus, or Medical Objects; Gentu can send and receive letters and correspondence electronically.

For an overview of Gentu's electronic correspondence capabilities, and instructions on initially setting up your Gentu to use electronic correspondence, see the Electronic Correspondence Overview article.

Before you begin

Before you can send a letter to another doctor you must:

1. Enter your third party carrier credentials in Practice Details.
2. Add the addressee/letter recipient into the Address Book.
3. Create a letter template (if desired).

Creating and sending electronic letters

To create a new letter; open the patient and select Add > Letter.

Select the Letter to Doctor option, select your template, and press OK.

Note the addressee on this letter: When you search for an addressee or CC, you will see a list of options which allow you to select how the letter is sent to the addressee (i.e. whether it's printed or sent electronically). Select the relevant option, i.e. the "(Healthlink)" or "(Argus)" option from the list.

Once you have specified how you would like to send the letter, you can create the letter as you would normally.

If you wish to send the electronic letter immediately:

1. Select the Ready to Send radio button (found at the bottom of the letter on the left hand side). 
   
   
2. The Print button will become Print and Send. 
   
   
3. Click Print and Send to send the letter at once.

If the letter requires review before it is sent:

1. Select the Draft or Ready to Review button, and press Save. 
   
   
2. The letter will move into the Results/Letters panel, under the Outgoing Correspondence tab. From here it can be reviewed and changed as needed.
   
   
3. When the letter is ready to send, you can open it and select the as Ready to Send option. The Print button will become Print and Send. Press this button to send the letter. 

Once sent, the letter will move into the Sent area of the Outgoing Correspondence list. A letter that has successfully sent will list the date and time of sending in the Sent column beside the letter.

Acknowledgements

When the letter is received, usually the recipient's software will automatically send back an electronic acknowledgement. Acknowledgements will indicate whether the letter was received successfully or not.

When the letter is awaiting acknowledgement it will display an orange hourglass icon underneath the letter within the Outgoing Letters > Sent tray.

When the letter is received by the addressee and acknowledged, a green tick will show on the letter in the list pane.

If the letter does not receive an automatic acknowledgement, you can open the letter and tick the "Ack" checkbox to manually acknowledge the letter. You should only do this once you have confirmed that the recipient did in fact receive the letter.

If the letter later receives an electronic acknowledgement, this will overwrite the manual acknowledgement. 

On the other hand, if the letter is not sent, it will return to the Ready to Send tray, and will display an 'Error' notification.

If this happens you can click on the letter to view further details of the error, and from here, attempt to re-send it by pressing Print and Send again.

Receiving Electronic Letters

When another practice sends an electronic letter to you, it will appear in the Results / Letters panel, under Incoming Correspondence. Click on the letter to read it.

Gentu will attempt to match the incoming letter to a patient in your database, based on the patient's details. 

If Gentu matches the letter to the incorrect patient, you can click the drop down arrow underneath the patient details - this will reveal a search bar which you can use to find and select the correct patient.

Otherwise, if no patient is found, you can search for them manually.

Once you've selected the correct patient, press Link to save the letter into their file. 

If required you can add a note to the letter, or mark it as urgent (by clicking the ! icon), before linking. This will create a to-do for the patient, which is quite useful if you need to follow up on the letter.

Once the letter is saved into a patient's file, it will be accessible via their Clinical tab.

For more information, you might find our Correspondence FAQ helpful.