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This is your patient register, and everything downstream hangs off it: a specimen is attached to a patient, and a result and a report carry that identity onto paper. A patient must exist here before you can raise an order against them.

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What you’re looking at

The page opens on Patients Management, with the line “Register, view, and manage patient records across your clinic” underneath it. Four buttons sit top right: Refresh, Import, Export and New Patient. Export is greyed out until you have at least one patient. New Patient carries a plan-limit lock shared with the other editions, but every Diagnostics plan has an unlimited patient allowance, so on a lab workspace with a live subscription it never trips. On the toolbar above the table, Import patients opens a panel that reads a standard health-record file (a FHIR file, NDJSON, or a plain JSON list) of up to 100 patients — owners and managers only. When an import adds a record that looks like an existing one, a Possible duplicates button appears with the number waiting; nothing is merged for you. Below that are six cards. Consultations and Triages count clinical work a diagnostic centre does not record, so in most labs they sit at zero and stay there. That is expected, not a fault. Two tabs follow: All Patients is the register itself, Analytics breaks it down by gender, age, country and chronic conditions. The register’s toolbar has Search patients…, a Patient status filter (Active, Inactive, Prospective, Archived), a Billing type filter (Self pay, Insurance), a Waitlist toggle that shows only self-registered requests awaiting a decision, and Columns, which lists every column under Visible Columns. Each filter shows a count while it is on and offers Clear filter; Clear all appears once any is set. Patient ID, Full Name, Category, Age, Gender, Phone, Nationality, Consultations and Last Visit are shown by default. Lab Tests, Blood Type, Genotype, Email, Occupation, Country, Triages and Prescriptions are hidden until you switch them on — turn on Lab Tests if you want to see at a glance who your repeat testers are. Each row’s menu offers View details, Edit, Send to patient, and on a waitlist row, Approve request and Decline request. Send to patient opens the same three-step sheet the patient’s own record uses, so you can send a form, a signature request or a consent document without leaving the register. The empty state. A brand-new lab does not get a blank table. It gets a panel headed “Your patient registry is empty” with a primary button, Explore with sample patients — “About 60 seconds · nothing is saved to your clinic” — plus two cards, Import patients and Add your first patient. A green note underneath makes the promise explicit: “We never auto-create patient records on your behalf.” Nothing in this register exists unless a person put it there.

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Register a patient

1

Start the record

Select New Patient. The intake form opens with Personal Information, Contact Information and Medical Profile sections.
2

Get the identity right

Name, gender and date of birth print on every report you release. A report carrying the wrong identity is the one error this workflow cannot absorb, so check them against an ID document rather than a spelling on a request form.
3

Save

The patient appears in the register and can be selected on a test request straight away.
The full field-by-field walkthrough is on Register your first patient. Once the record exists, raise the order from Raise a test request.

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Bring an existing list in

1

Open the importer

Select Import. On an empty register the Import patients card does the same thing — “Bring an existing list in from a CSV”.
2

Match your columns and import

Every row is registered as a real patient record, with the same checks as a record typed at the desk.
3

Check the count

Total Patients should rise by the number of rows you brought in. If it rises by fewer, some rows were rejected — usually a missing name or an unreadable date of birth.
Export does the reverse for the register you already hold, and stays disabled while the register is empty.

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Decide a waitlist request

Patients who register themselves land on the waitlist rather than straight into your register, so somebody at the desk sees them before a sample is ever attached.
1

Show the queue

Select Waitlist. The button turns amber and the register narrows to requests awaiting a decision. Select it again to clear the filter.
2

Open the row menu

Choose Approve request or Decline request.
3

Decide on portal access before you approve

Approve opens a dialog explaining that the person will “become an active patient in your clinic”, with a checkbox, Enable client portal access — “Lets them sign in via magic link to view records, book appointments, and message your team.” Clear it if they should not get a login. Then select Approve.
4

Or decline it

Decline archives the request and removes it from the waitlist. The dialog says plainly that this “does not notify the requester”, so call or email them yourself if they are expecting an answer.
Enable client portal access arrives already ticked. Approve without looking and you have handed that person a login that shows their records and lets them message your team. Clear the checkbox first whenever portal access is not what you intend.

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Who can do this

Role is the lever here too. The grantable lab permissions cover results, turnaround analytics and the referrer portal — Enter results at the bench, Verify and authorise results, Amend a verified result, View turnaround-time analytics and Access the referrer portal — and none of them governs the patient register. What differs between people is which actions their role allows. A Lab Scientist or Phlebotomist therefore reads the register, and may add a patient, but cannot correct an existing one — selecting a row opens the record read-only. That is by design: a name corrected at the bench is a name that no longer matches the request form. An Accountant is outside the edit list for the same structural reason. No Diagnostics plan limits patient numbers. Starter Lab through Enterprise all carry an unlimited patient allowance, so the plan-cap wall on New Patient does not appear on a lab workspace with an active subscription. If you meet it, the subscription itself has lapsed — see Change your plan. Two behaviours surprise people:
  • Enforcement is opt-in, per person. Somebody never saved in the permissions sheet is unrestricted, and the sheet warns “Saving starts enforcing”.
  • A denied action is recorded; an allowed one is not. Where a figure is not yours to see it renders as a dash or the row disappears — never as a zero.
See Permissions.

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Check it worked

  • The patient appears in the register, with a Patient ID on their row.
  • Total Patients has gone up by one, and New Patients counts them under “Last 30 days”.
  • Searching their surname in Search patients… finds them.
  • They can be selected as the patient on a new test request.
  • After approving a waitlist request, the Waitlist filter no longer shows them and the register does.

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Common issues

No Diagnostics plan caps patient numbers, so this is a subscription problem rather than a size problem — the lock reads a plan allowance and your workspace currently has no active one. Hovering the button shows the upgrade panel with the plan and limit it thinks you are on. See Change your plan.
Export stays disabled while the register is empty. Register or import at least one patient first.
Check three things in order: the Waitlist filter is not still on, the search box is empty, and the record was actually saved rather than left open in the form. A self-registered patient sits on the waitlist until somebody approves them.
Your role can view but not edit — Lab Scientists and Phlebotomists read the register rather than change it. Ask the front desk or a manager to make the correction.
Enable client portal access is ticked by default in the approve dialog. Turn their portal access off in the patient’s record, and clear the checkbox on the next approval.
They count clinical activity a diagnostic centre does not record. Use Lab Tests — switch the column on under Columns — for the number that means something in a lab.

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FAQ

Yes. A test request is raised against a patient record, and the specimen, the result and the report all carry that identity. Register them first, then order.
No. Explore with sample patients is a 60-second tour and “nothing is saved to your clinic”. ClinikEHR never auto-creates patient records, so your register stays exactly as you left it.
No. The dialog states that declining “does not notify the requester” — it archives the request and removes it from the waitlist. Contact them yourself if they are waiting on an answer.
It is the patient type on the record — whether they are registered in their own right or linked to a sponsor, such as a parent or an employer account paying for them.
You can, but a contact number is what lets you call a critical result through instead of waiting for someone to open a report. Add one wherever you have it.