Merge duplicate patients

Merge two patient profiles

Merging in Velarya combines two profiles of the same patient into the one you choose to keep. Duplicates often come from a patient added at the desk who later signs up in the patient app with a phone number and email that both differ from the desk profile’s. Before you merge, open each profile and compare the date of birth, contact details and visits to be sure they belong to the same person.

1. Select Clients in the left sidebar.
2. Type the patient’s last name, email or phone number in Search clients… so both profiles show.
3. Select the checkbox beside each of the two profiles. The bar at the bottom of the screen reads “2 clients”.
4. Select Merge in that bar.

5. In Merge Clients, choose the profile to keep under Record to keep. Each profile is listed by name, followed by its email, or its phone number when it has no email; a profile with neither shows its name only.

6. Check the red box: Will be permanently deleted names the other profile.

7. Select Merge Clients. “Clients merged successfully” appears, and the list shows one profile for the patient.

Keep the profile whose membership should continue, since the other profile’s membership is cancelled when both have one. The kept profile’s name stays too, and a name can be corrected afterwards. Find, filter and export your patients has more ways to find a patient on the list.

What moves to the kept profile?

Merging in Velarya moves the duplicate’s appointments, sales, memberships, balances and clinical records to the profile you keep, then deletes the duplicate.

For example, a kept profile with $20.00 of wallet credit and 300 points, merged with a duplicate holding $15.00 and 150 points, ends with $35.00 and 450 points. Adjust a patient’s points or wallet credit covers correcting a balance afterwards.

What happens when both profiles have a membership?

When both profiles in Velarya have a membership that hasn’t ended, the kept profile’s membership carries on and the duplicate’s is cancelled at once. Velarya stops the duplicate’s billing before it merges anything, and if the billing can’t be stopped, nothing is merged and you can try again. The cancelled membership moves to the kept profile as history, so its past payments stay on record. When only the duplicate has a membership, it moves to the kept profile and carries on as before.

The merge’s cancellation charges nothing and refunds nothing. To give back part of the duplicate’s current period, cancel that membership first with a refund, as Change or cancel a membership shows, then merge. To keep the duplicate’s membership instead, choose the duplicate as Record to keep.

What do patients see?

Patients see one profile at your practice after a merge. Their app sign-in links to the kept profile, so in the patient app their appointments, membership, saved cards, wallet credit and points from both profiles show together. Merging never changes their sign-in or their records at any other practice that uses the Velarya app, and Velarya sends the patient no message about the merge.

Velarya records every merge in your practice’s audit log, with who merged the profiles and when.

If something goes wrong

Merge isn’t in the bar at the bottom of the screen. Merge appears when exactly two patients are selected, for staff with Merge duplicate clients. Clear any extra selection, or ask an Admin to merge the profiles.

“These two clients have tax invoices under different National IDs, so they are different people and cannot be merged.” Each profile has sales with a tax invoice issued to a different National ID, so Velarya treats them as two people. Keep both profiles.

The search shows one profile, and you know there are two. The duplicate is under a different spelling, email or phone number. Search by phone number, then by email, then by last name.

The kept profile has the wrong name. The name comes from the profile chosen as Record to keep. Correct it with Edit client details, as Update, archive or delete a patient shows; a name change needs an Admin or a Location Manager.