The NextPatient system using patient-matching logic to help you and your practice book online patients with fewer duplicates. While this programming is extremely intelligent, one situation where the logic can get confused is when twin patients are booking.
When NextPatient books patients, it uses the API to match:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Date of Birth
- Sex
- Phone
When dealing with twins, especially in the pediatric setting, a lot of this information is the same. If their names start with the same letter, 5 of the 6 fields match and the system thinks this might be a duplicate, not the twin that is a new patient.
When this happens, the best practice is to create the second patient manually in your EHR. In the future when twins like Jon and Josh Doe book, the matching will pair correctly.