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What is a Care Plan?

The Care Plan is a patient-centered planning tool that focuses on your patient’s specific needs, goals, and preferences. It represents a “snapshot” of care at a single point in time to be easily shared with other providers and teams to ensure continuity of care. Each Visit Note Format has a Care Plan section except for the Simple Note. You can also create a Visit Note Category specifically for care plans if care plans are frequently needed for a patient. Care Plans usually consist of:
  • any treatment prescribed to a patient
  • any testing orders that you would like a patient to complete
  • any recommendations for care after the visit

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Creating a “Care Plan” visit note category

For Admins Only: To edit visit note categories, you must have administrator (Admin) level privileges. If you do not see the “Report & Visit Note Categories” option in your Settings page, then you are not an Admin. To become an Admin, you must ask an existing Admin level user in your practice (most likely a primary provider level account holder) to grant you privileges via this Manage Accounts settings page.​
If you wish you categorize specific patient encounters as “Care Plan” visits in your patient’s chart, add a “Care Plan” visit note category to your Practice Settings. 
  1. Click “Settings” >> “Report & Visit Note Categories”
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “+ Add Visit Note Category” button
  3. Type ‘Care Plan’ in the text field
  4. Update the toggle for “Count for MIPS?” as needed
  5. Click “Save”.
This visit note category will also allow you to export Care Plans via C-CDA (CCDA) exports.

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Building a Care Plan within a visit note

Any records within the “Plan” section of your visit note will be part of the care plan whether it is
  • assessments or directions that you typed for the patient to follow
  • referrals to another provider
  • medications you prescribed
  • tests you ordered for the patient to complete
  • vaccinations administered

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Creating a new “Care Plan” visit note

To create a new visit note with the Care Plancategory:
  1. Click the “Visit Note” button at the top of the patient’s chart
  2. At the top of the new visit note, change the visit note category dropdown to “Care Plan”
  3. Populate care plan details in the visit note.
  4. Click “Sign Visit Note” to complete the Care Plan visit note.
To view Care Plans that you have documented for your patient, type the keyword “Care Plan” into the Chronological Record’s search bar.

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Creating a new Care Plan from an existing visit note

When you are updating a patient’s Care Plan, Elation allows you to copy forward an existing Care Plan or signed Visit Note from the patient’s chart to minimize duplicative work.
  1. Find the signed Care Plan in your patient’s Chronological Record. You can also type the keyword “Care Plan” into the Chronological Record’s search bar.
  2. Click on the “Actions” >> “Export to Note” on the Care Plan you found
  3. The contents of existing Care Plan will copy forward into a new visit note.​
  4. At the top of the new visit note, change the visit note category dropdown to “Care Plan” as needed
  5. Populate care plan details in the visit note.
  6. Click “Sign Visit Note” to complete the Care Plan visit note.

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Sharing Care Plans

Care Plans can be shared:
  • automatically with your patients through Elation Patient Passport once a patient has registered for a Passport account and you sign any visit notes with Care Plan details
  • with other collaborating providers or healthcare professionals by attaching the Care Plan to a Letter or Referral and sending the Care Plan to them
  • by generating a C-CDA (CCDA) export of a Care Plan and sharing it securely with someone else