How to Use the iPhone and iPad Interface

Owned by Dylan Nigh
Last updated: Nov 03, 2023
6 min read

The iPhone/iPad Interface was created to access basic patient and appointment data from outside of the office. The interface will allow your providers to add new patients, review clinical history, and send an electronic care slip to the Orders Ability within MacPractice. 

This article reviews the general usage of the iPhone/iPad Interface. Each interface behaves essentially the same, but is tailored to the format of the iPhone or the iPad.

 

The iPhone and iPad Interfaces only function when your MacPractice Server uses MacOS Catalina or older, so effectively Build 13 and below of MacPractice.
We have also released MacPractice Go, our more modern web-based solution to a method to accessing MacPractice data remotely.
MP Go is included for free on your license. Click here to learn more about MP Go!

In this guide, we presume you already have the interface installed and configured. You can download and install the iPhone or iPad interface from the MacPractice Downloads page. 

For instructions on enabling SSL and PHP, click here. These instructions are complicated and if upon review you feel uncomfortable following these directions, don't hesitate to contact MacPractice Support. We're more than happy to assist you with this process.

Overview of the Interface

When you first access your interface page in your browser, you'll be treated to a login screen.

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This log in screen asks for your MacPractice username and password.

Important Note: The Interface log in screen does NOT allow an account with the Username "admin" to log in to the Interface as a security measure.

Always try to log in with an account without the Username "admin".

Once you've logged in, you'll be presented with the Schedule Ability for today's date.

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The Interface shares a lot of elements with MacPractice. You can see your available abilities at the top of the window. What we first recommend is to visit the Preferences Ability in order to configure the information available to you on the Interface.

Adjusting your Preferences

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By clicking the Preferences Ability, you're taken to the screen on the right, where you can adjust a limited number of options. You should review these and adjust them to meet your needs before progressing further. The available Preferences are, from top to bottom:

 

 

 

  • Log Out: This pop-out menu controls how long a user can be idle until they are automatically logged out of the Interface. The options range from 5/10/15/20/25/30 minutes, or Never. We recommend 5 minutes or higher to protect your office's data.

  • Appointment Time Order: This option controls whether Appointments in the Schedule Ability of the Interface are sorted from First to Last, or from Last to First.

  • Show Today's Past Appointments: If enabled, this option will display all appointments for today. If disabled, you'll instead only be shown the remaining appointments that haven't occurred yet for today.

  • Show Appointments of All Providers: If enabled, this option will display all appointments whether they are assigned to your current provider user or not. If disabled, you'll only be able to see the appointments assigned to your currently logged in provider user.

  • Show My Resources Only: If enabled, this option will only show you appointments that are scheduled on a Resource tied to your provider user. If disabled, you will be able to appointments scheduled to any resource. 

  • Diagnosis Codes: This option, when enabled, allows you to add diagnosis codes to posted charges in the Patients Ability of the Interface.

  • Modifiers: This option, when enabled, allows you to add modifiers to posted charges in the Patients Ability of the Interface.

This screen also lists the type and version of Interface you're currently using. 

Schedule Ability

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The Schedule Ability on the Interface allows you to review the office schedule. While you cannot make any additional appointments, you're able to access your entire appointment history.

If you touch on an appointment, you'll be brought to their Appointment Info in the Patients Ability on the Interface.

By default, you are only able to see appointments for your user's schedule resource without tinkering in Preferences (covered earlier in the article).

You can view the Schedule in List format, as shown in the above screenshot, or you can switch to the Calendar view, which resembles how the schedule appears in MacPractice ordinarily. Both options are available right underneath the toolbar in the upper left.

If you don't want to include a particular resource included in the results, you can uncheck the resource in the left pane by touching the checkbox.

Patients Ability

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The Patients Ability in the Interface allows you to review information in a patient's account.

Note: Currently there's a quirk where you have to navigate to the Schedule Ability and select a patient from there before any information will display in the Patients Ability.

There are many similarities to the Patient Ability within MacPractice, although some information is still unavailable on the Interface.

In the upper left hand corner of the view, you can see a green plus icon that you can use to add a patient to the database. There's also a "View All Patients" button to pull up all patient records to peruse. This can take a long time to load, so we recommend using the Patient Search bar to pinpoint a specific patient without the wait.

The Alerts indicator allows you to see what alerts are on the patient account.

The tabs are, in order:

  • Clinical: This tab contains information that has been added to the patient's Clinical record in the Clinical Tab in MacPractice. You're able to add Vital records from here.

  • Patient: This tab contains the patient's demographic information as stored in the Patients Ability in the Patient Tab. 

  • Appt Info: This tab will be present if there is a linked appointment you tapped on in the Schedule. 

  • Follow-Ups: This tab tracks any follow-up/recalls listed on the patient's account.

  • Referrals: This tab lists any referrals made on the patient's account in the Patient tab of the Patients Ability.

  • Custom: This tab contains any information added into the Custom section of the Patient tab of the Patients Ability.

  • Appts: This tab lists all appointments

  • Notes: This tab pulls in information from the Notes section in the Patient tab of the Patients Ability in MacPractice. Despite the name, it does NOT pull in any Notes associated with the patient in the Notes Ability.

  • Emergency: This tab contains the contents of the Emergency section of the Patient tab of the Patients Ability. 

  • Post Charge: This tab allows a user to post charges to a patient's ledger from the interface. These charges are posted as an Order within MacPractice as a Careslip Order, which users can view in MacPractice as long as they have the appropriate privileges set.

  • Orders: This tab allows a user to review and add Orders to the Orders Ability in MacPractice. 

Rx Ability

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The Rx Ability in the Interface allows a user to review the Active Meds and Inactive Meds for a specific patient, as well as any details added in the Prescribed Date, SIG, Additional Sig, and Special Instructions fields in the Rx Ability in MacPractice.

Reports

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The Reports Ability on the Interface allows a user to access the Daily Report for the last month. You can filter this report by Provider or Office.

This is the only report accessible from the Reports Ability. Any other reports must be run on the MacPractice Server or Client software.

Referrers

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The Referrers Ability of the Interface allows you to review all of your Referrers and any Patients that have a referral listed with that Provider.Â