Important Things to Know after Upgrading

People, Accounts and Companies
In Panacea 6.3e an account and a person were pretty much the same thing.  When adding a patient you were also effectively adding that person's account.  Panacea 7 separates these two concepts.  This has many important advantages, but is commonly misunderstood by Panacea 6.3e users.  It is strongly recommended that you fully understand the difference before using Panacea 7.

In Panacea 7 a person is any human being.  Typically, this would include the following:

• A patient treated at the practice
• A person responsible for an account
• A member of a medical aid
• A service provider at the practice, e.g. doctor, physio
• A user of Panacea (e.g. you)
• A Doctor who refers patients to the practice

This is a departure from the old Panacea where the above items were maintained in different places in the program.  In Panacea 7 all people, regardless of their role, are maintained under People.  Obviously you will have varying levels of detail for each person depending on their role.  For example, you will need the date of birth for patients, but would probably not have this information for a referring doctor.  It is OK, therefore, when adding a doctor that you leave out their date of birth.

Companies in Panacea 7 typically include the following:

• A Medical aid
• An employer
• The WCA commissioner

An account in Panacea 7 is a collection of billing information.  When adding an account you must specify a person responsible.  The person responsible can be anybody, but is usually the member of the medical aid, or the patient's mother or father.

Funders
Companies that pay accounts are referred in Panacea 7 as funders.  Typically these are medical aids, but funders also exist for Injury on Duty accounts, hence our use of the generic name "funders".

The easiest approach with Panacea 7 is to look at data items in their simplest form.  We instinctively know the difference between a person, a company and an account, so it should be easy to know where to capture these items in the new Panacea.