The quick follow-up: a complete prescription on one screen, without losing the case

A chronic case runs for months. The patient with eczema who starts in June is still coming in December. Count a day’s OPD and most names are returning ones: a line of change, a decision, a slip, the next date.

That is why the pen survives. A pad is quick for a follow-up, and most software is shaped around the first consultation — symptoms, rubrics, analysis — which is the wrong shape for a short review. So the slip gets written by hand, and the record stops at the first visit.

A quick visit can leave out a great deal. It cannot leave out these five.

• The case it continues. The visit belongs to the eczema, not to the cold the patient also mentions. Without that link the next visit cannot be read against this one.
• One line of change. Itching less at night, sleeping through. A single line is the difference between an outcome and a guess six months later.
• What was given. Remedy, potency, dose and how often, exactly as dispensed, so the next decision starts from the record, not memory.
• When to come back. A follow-up date is the only thing that becomes a list of who is due. Without it, the patient who should have returned in two weeks simply does not, and nobody notices.
• The fee. Free visits included. A clinic that records fees only for first consultations does not know its own income.

Skip any one and something quietly goes missing: the follow-ups-due list, the income record, the outcome. None of it hurts on the day.

Software makes repetition easy, and that is the danger. A button that brings back last time’s medicines is a convenience, not an opinion about this patient. Whether to repeat, wait or change belongs to the doctor, after looking at the case — never to a default.

Kent’s lectures on the second prescription are largely a warning about this. While the patient is improving, the remedy is still acting. Repeating it too soon, or changing it out of impatience, can disturb a case that was going well. His counsel, in short: as long as improvement continues, let the remedy act.

A fast pad should record your answer, not suggest one. Quick Rx records what you hand over, so it needs at least one medicine line: whatever you dispense — the same remedy, a new one, or what you give while you wait — goes in as you would label the packet. The decision stays where it was.

Some follow-ups are not quick, and pretending otherwise is how cases drift. Take the case properly when:

• New symptoms appear, especially ones outside the picture you prescribed on. They may be a new layer, symptoms of the remedy itself or a different illness, and each calls for something else.
• The state has changed. Mind, energy, sleep, the direction of the symptoms. “The skin is better but I feel low” is not a repeat; it is a direction-of-cure question.
• The case has stalled. Two or three visits without real movement deserve a fresh look at the totality, not another repeat.

In a busy OPD this works only if changing your mind halfway costs nothing: everything already typed should come along.

The pen is fast because it asks nothing of you. Software can match it only by asking less, never by dropping part of the record.

• Kits for standing combinations: the combination you give for an acute fever, with its dosing, saved once and added in one tap.
• Your usual remedies: the ones you write most often, one tap each. In hpills each carries the potency you last wrote, which only saves typing; what goes on the slip is still yours to decide.
• One keystroke to save: Enter adds the top search match, and Ctrl/⌘ + Enter saves the prescription.
• Nothing to retype: pick the patient, and their running case and the fee you charged last time are already on the screen.

None of this skips anything. The fast path writes the same visit as the slow one.

In hpills the Rx tab opens on Quick, with a Quick | Detailed toggle in the header. One screen, top to bottom:

• Patient: type into “Patient name or mobile”, or add a new patient on the same screen. The same name and mobile land on the existing file, not a duplicate.
• Case: the patient’s running cases, the most recently seen one already selected, or “Start a new case”, named from the complaint.
• Last visit: what was given last time in that case. “Repeat last prescription” puts those lines back, ready to edit, if repeating is what you decided.
• Complaint: one optional line, printed on the slip.
• Medicines: kit chips, your usual remedies and a search box. Each line has Potency, Dose and How often, Morning / Afternoon / Evening / Night toggles and food timing.
• Follow up: chips from 3 days to 2 months, or None. The date feeds Follow-ups due on your dashboard.
• Fee (₹): Consultation and Medicine, filled in from your last paid visit. 0 records a free visit.

“Save prescription” writes an ordinary completed visit. It shows on the patient’s timeline, in Insights and in Follow-ups due, and in the appointment book as a walk-in when there was no booking. Then “Print slip”, “Send on WhatsApp” — a pre-filled message you send from your own number, on the Light and Premium plans — or “Next patient →”. If the visit turns out to need repertorization, “Continue in Detailed →” carries everything into the full consultation.

Quick is not a case-taking screen. It has no rubrics, and it does not choose a remedy or a potency for you. The release notes are in the changelog.

If your pad is faster than your software today, that is a fair test to set us. Start today at ₹0 with your own clinic and run a morning’s follow-ups through it, or request the live demo to try it on a working practice. The features in detail show the rest.