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The Patient Demographics window in the Patient Chart is one of the most important tools you have at hand to foster a personal relationship with your patient and improve medical billing workflows.
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What are Patient Demographics?

The Patient Demographics feature allows you to store all patient identifying information in one place. With the additional fields and selection options added in 2022 you can now store even more information in specified fields for all of your patients. The upgraded Clinical Profile view will also allow you to see the most critical pieces of information at a glance; without needing to open the full demographics window.

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Why are Patient Demographics valuable?

The Patient Demographics feature allows you to improve healthcare related workflows, enhance communication and streamline your business needs. You can store all of your patients’ demographics information in one place to allow you to make crucial healthcare and treatment decisions based off of each patient’s information. Within Elation, various demographics fields also assist you with different workflows and facilitate the use of different features. Please review the Tips for using various demographics fields section for more details.

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What fields are available in the Patient Demographics window?

All available demographics fields are visible below. Patient Details tab selected in Emily Moore's demographics, showing legal name, DOB 10/21/1990, sex at birth Female, gender Woman, Previous Name, and Additional Details fields including SSN, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity. Contact Information tab in Emily Moore's demographics, showing empty phone, email, and preferred contact method fields, unchecked appointment reminder opt-out, and address: 44337 Moon Divide Suite 600, New Amber, WA 94478. Insurance, Payment, & Membership tab selected in Emily Moore's demographics, showing Primary Insurance fields including carrier name, plan name, Group ID, Member ID, copay, deductible, coverage, dates, and policyholder section with "Spouse" selected as patient's relation. Secondary Insurance section for Emily Moore showing empty fields for carrier name, plan name, Group ID, Member ID, Copay, Deductible, Coverage, Effective Date, and End Date, with Policyholder relation set to "Self" Patient demographics Pharmacies tab for Emily Moore, showing two saved CVS pharmacies in San Marcos, CA, each with address, phone, fax, and a Remove link. Provider Information tab in patient demographics for Emily Moore, showing Beverly Crusher, MD selected as the assigned provider, with empty Preferred Location, Referring provider, and Primary care provider fields. Notes & Chart Management tab in Emily Moore's demographics, showing empty Notes field, Status set to Active, unchecked Mark as VIP, and Merge Chart and Delete Chart buttons. Read the following articles to learn more about managing the following demographics fields:

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What fields are visible in the Clinical Profile demographics view?

This is what the Clinical Profile view looks like for patient demographics. The patient’s preferred full name (ex. Danny Jones) will display at the top of the chart and their legal full name (ex. Donald Jones) will display in the Additional Information section. Clinical Profile header for Danny Jones showing preferred name, DOB 01/20/1980, pronouns He/Him/His, gender Man, legal name Donald J. Jones, provider Karly Smith MD, and insurance Aetna. Here is a legend of all of the possible details that will display in the clinical profile if the corresponding fields are filled in and the corresponding icons for those fields.
Hover your mouse cursor over the icons to learn what each icon means.
Legend of Clinical Profile demographic icons including Legal Full Name, Provider, Insurance, Employer, Sex at Birth, Phone Number, and Membership Plan fields.

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Tips for using various demographics fields

  • Legal Name= the patient’s name as displayed on all government issued documents such as their Social Security Card or Passport
  • Full Name= the name the patient wishes to be called that is different from their legal name
Where each name is usedWhen a patient has a Full Name (preferred/actual name) set, Elation uses it on patient-facing surfaces instead of their legal name. Clinical, compliance, payer, lab, and pharmacy workflows continue to use the legal name where required.Surfaces that use the Full Name (when set):
  • Patient Passport
  • Patient Booking Site, booking confirmation, and booking patient form header
  • Appointment confirmation SMS and phone confirmations
  • Appointment cancellation emails
  • SMS (text message) opt-in page and opt-in request emails
  • Patient Forms
  • Patient invoice and Membership communications
  • Patient profile print view
  • MIPS printouts
Surfaces that continue to use the Legal Name:
  • Insurance claims and eligibility (payer-facing)
  • Lab and pharmacy orders (including ePrescribing)
  • QRDA-3 submissions to CMS
  • Other clinical, compliance-sensitive, or regulatory workflows

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Pronouns

What does the patient want to be referred by when you are not using their name?
  • He/Him/His
  • She/Her/Hers
  • They/Them/Theirs
  • Option Not Listed

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Sex at birth

This field is usually used to designate the patient’s sex at birth. We recommend storing the patient’s legal sex as designated on government issues documents if you bill insurance companies.
  • Female
  • Male
  • Intersex/other
  • Unknown
Gender How the patient identifies themselves
  • Woman
  • Man
  • Transgender woman / trans feminine
    • for patients who were assigned male at birth but identify with femininity
  • Transgender man / trans masculine
    • for patients who were assigned female at birth but identify with masculinity
  • Non-binary / genderqueer / gender fluid
    • for patients who may fluctuate gender expressions over their lifetime or express multiple various gender markers at the same time
  • Two spirit
    • for patients who identifies as having both a masculine and feminine spirit
  • Option not listed
  • Prefer not to say

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SSN (Social Security Number)

You can now choose to turn on a feature that allows you to mask the patient’s Social Security Number when viewing patient demographics. When this feature is turned on, the Social Security Number will be hidden until you click the unhide button to view it.
  • If you would like this feature turned on for your practice, have an Admin Level User in the practice click the I need help -> Contact Elation Support button to ask a member of the Support Team to turn this feature on for you.
Patient Demographics window showing SSN field masked as dots, with an arrow pointing to the unmasked SSN "888-55-4124" revealed by clicking the eye icon.

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Sexual Orientation

Which gender(s) is the patient sexually attracted to?
  • Asexual
  • Bisexual
  • Gay
  • Lesbian
  • Straight
  • Queer
  • Option Not Listed
  • Prefer Not to Say
Legal gender marker The designation of an individual’s sex on a birth record or other government issued document
  • (F)= Female
  • (M)= Male
  • (X)= Nonbinary (a gender that is not exclusively male nor female)
  • Unknown

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Patient Contact

The mobile phone and email address stored in this section is used for the following patient engagement features:

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Patient Address

This field is required for prescribing medications, (especially controlled substance medications) and ordering lab tests (especially electronic lab ordering ).

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Insurance

If you bill a patient’s insurance company for services rendered, we recommend storing the patient’s primary, secondary or tertiary insurance information in the Insurance section of the patient demographics. Learn more about storing insurance information in the Patient Demographics Guide- Managing patient insurance .

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Pharmacies

The preferred pharmacies entered in this section will facilitate sending prescriptions electronically to pharmacies from Elation.

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Provider Information

The Provider assign in practice field determines which provider in the practice the patient will be assigned to in the administrative reports . This field also determines which provider is assigned drafted orders when staff assist with drafting prescriptions, orders and referrals.

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Creating a new patient chart

To create a new patient chart:
  1. Go to the Practice Home page and click on the New Chart button in the gray navigation bar.
  2. Fill in the patient’s demographics details- especially the required fields of legal first name, legal last name, date of birth, sex at birth and Provider assigned in practice
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  1. click Create & Open Chart or Create Chart when done.
The New Chart button highlighted in the Practice Home navigation bar, with an arrow pointing to the open Create New Patient Chart dialog showing Patient Details and Contact Information fields, with Legal first name marked as Required. Find Chart search field showing "emily swan" typed with "No results" displayed and the "Create a new patient chart with this name..." option highlighted below.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Will Patients see their “Full Name” in any communications?

Yes, Patients will see their Full name displayed in all of the following Patient facing communications and forums:
  • Patient Passport
  • Booking Site
  • Appointment reminders and confirmations
  • Patient Forms
  • Patient invoice communications
  • Membership communications
  • SMS (text message) Opt-In requests

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Can I search for a patient in the EHR using their “Full Name”?

Yes, you can search for a patient using their full name, in addition to their legal name. For example, if the patient’s legal name is “Brian Walter Mills” but their full name is “Bobby Mills”, searching for Bobby will return a match for Brian Walter Mills.