You mark a patient as an inpatient (admit the patient) when the patient stays at the clinic for treatment. Marking a patient as an inpatient changes the consultation type to 'Inpatient' and, if your clinic location uses wards, places the patient in a ward. To mark patients as inpatients, hospital mode must be turned on for the clinic location.
Note: The new consultation page is being released during September 2026. You can switch between versions at any time from the top of the consultation page. This article covers how to mark a patient as an inpatient in both. The Mark as inpatient button on the new consultation page is being released to clinics in stages. If you do not see the button on the new consultation page, select Return to old version.
Requirements for Marking a Patient as an Inpatient
You can mark a patient as an inpatient when all of these requirements are met:
Hospital mode is turned on for the clinic location.
The consultation has one patient.
The consultation is not finalized.
The patient is not already an inpatient on the consultation.
If a requirement is not met, the Mark as inpatient button is not shown.
Farm visit, boarding, and pet service consultations cannot be changed to inpatient consultations. Multi-patient consultations open on the old consultation page and cannot be changed to inpatient consultations. If one patient in a multi-patient consultation needs inpatient care, start a new single-patient consultation for that patient.
Hospital Mode
Hospital mode is a clinic location setting for clinics that keep patients for treatment, such as hospitals and emergency clinics. Hospital mode must be turned on before you can mark patients as inpatients.
Turning on hospital mode has these effects:
You can mark patients as inpatients.
The Consultation status section fields setting is shown. Use this setting to select the vital sign fields that are shown in the Vitals section of the consultation page. For more information, see Settings for Patient Vitals.
The Hidden admission dialog fields setting is shown. Use this setting to choose which fields are hidden in the consultation admission dialog.
Treatment plan functions are available. To use treatment plans for inpatients, also turn on the Enable treatment plans in hospital mode setting. For more information, see Treatment Plan Settings.
Inpatients always use multiple clinical notes. For more information, see Write Multiple Clinical Notes Per Patient in One Consultation.
Turn On Hospital Mode
To turn on hospital mode, you need user permissions to change clinic location settings.
Go to Settings > Clinic location.
Select the pen button next to Clinic location settings.
Select Enable hospital mode.
Select Save.
Hospital mode is turned on for the clinic location. The Mark as inpatient button is available on consultations that meet the requirements.
Mark a Patient as an Inpatient
Go to the consultation page.
Open the Mark as inpatient dialog:
New consultation page: in the bottom action bar, select Mark as inpatient. Or, in the Consultation overview section, select Inpatient from the Consultation type drop-down list.
Old consultation page: in the Consultation details section, select Mark as inpatient next to Type.
Optional: To change the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) agreement, select the CPR agreement next to the patient name in the dialog header. Then select an option from the CPR agreement drop-down list.
If your clinic location uses wards, select the ward the patient stays in from the Ward drop-down list.
If your clinic location uses cost centers, select a cost center from the Cost center drop-down list.
If your clinic location uses patient locations, select a location from the Patient location 1 drop-down list. If needed, also select a temporary location from the Patient location 2 drop-down list.
Select Mark as inpatient.
The consultation type changes to 'Inpatient'. The ward and the patient locations are shown in the Consultation overview section (new consultation page) or the Consultation details section (old consultation page). If you select Cancel in the dialog, the consultation keeps its previous consultation type.
Fields in the Mark as Inpatient Dialog
The Mark as inpatient dialog is the same on the new and the old consultation page. The dialog shows the CPR agreement of the patient in the dialog header. The Ward, Cost center, and patient location fields are shown only when your clinic location has them set up. If the consultation already has a value for a field, the field is filled in automatically.
CPR agreement: The cardiopulmonary resuscitation agreement of the patient, shown next to the patient name. The options are 'Unknown', 'CPR' (CPR allowed), 'ACPR' (Advanced CPR allowed), and 'DNR' (Do-not-resuscitate). If you change the CPR agreement in the dialog, the change is saved to the patient.
Ward: The ward the patient stays in. The ward controls which automatic in-house fees are added to the invoice.
Cost center: The cost center for the consultation.
Patient location 1: The primary location of the patient, such as a kennel. If a location has sub-locations, select a sub-location. Parent locations cannot be used for patients. On the consultation page, this location is shown as Primary patient location (new consultation page) or Pt Primary Location (old consultation page).
Patient location 2: A temporary location, such as radiology. On the consultation page, this location is shown as Temporary patient location (new consultation page) or Pt Temporary Location (old consultation page).
If the Ward field, the Cost center field, or a patient location field is not shown in the dialog, your clinic location does not have wards, cost centers, or patient locations set up.
Change an Inpatient Consultation to Outpatient
Go to the consultation page.
Change the consultation type:
New consultation page: in the Consultation overview section, select Outpatient from the Consultation type drop-down list.
Old consultation page: select the pen button for the Consultation details section. Change the Consultation type from 'Inpatient' to 'Outpatient'. Then select Save.
The consultation type changes to 'Outpatient'.
Note: If your clinic location uses the Smart Flow integration, you cannot change an inpatient consultation back to outpatient after a clinical note has been added.
If a patient is changed to outpatient and then marked as an inpatient again in the same consultation, one-time in-house fees can be added to the invoice again. Remove any unwanted fees from the invoice manually.