When it's time to discharge a client from your practice, you can note their status by adding a "Discharge Summary Note" to their chart.
Key Takeaways
You can only discharge clients with no future appointments. Before changing a client's status, cancel any upcoming appointments.
Certain payors, such as Medicaid, require a "Discharge Summary Note" to be added to a client's record when discharging a client.
Once a client is discharged, their information is archived.
If additional client care is needed, you can unarchive a client.
Discharging versus archiving
Discharging a client signifies the end of their treatment with you, whereas archiving a client marks them as inactive. Archiving a client prevents them from booking new appointments with you unless they are unarchived.
Discharging a client
Even when a client pauses unexpectedly—such as through disengagement or non-response—completing a discharge note in the client’s chart helps maintain compliance with documentation standards required by payors, including Medicaid and Medicare, who often require a discharge note within a certain period of days since the last appointment. Clients are always welcome to return to care in the future, based on clinical appropriateness and provider availability.
Discharging a client typically indicates that the client has completed their treatment or is no longer receiving services from the provider.
When a client is discharged, the provider should cancel all future recurring appointments.
Discharging a client indicates that the client is done with treatment at this time.
When you complete a discharge note within the Grow EHR, the client is automatically archived once the note is saved.
Archiving a client
If a client hasn't completed an initial assessment and you want to remove them from your caseload or prevent them from scheduling a follow-up appointment, a discharge note isn't needed. You can just archive the client in this case.
Archiving a client means the client is no longer being seen.
Archived clients cannot schedule future appointments with their provider unless they are unarchived.
Providers often archive clients once they've been referred out or no longer need services. However, it is important to note that archived clients cannot be rescheduled until they have been unarchived.
To archive a client in your provider portal:
Search and select the client's name from the Clients dashboard. Select the three-dot menu to the right of their name, and select Archive from the drop-down menu.
Select a reason for archiving the client in the pop-up and then select Archive.
Add a discharge summary note
To add a discharge summary to a client's chart:
Navigate to Clients via the sidebar navigation.
Select a client to open their client chart.
Locate and select the Add note option in the "Timeline" section.
Select the Discharge summary note option from the "Note type" dropdown menu and select Next.
Complete each note section and select Save & Archive. If you would like to refer a client as part of their discharge, check out the additional section below for more information. This option is only available to therapists, not prescribers.
The discharge summary will be added to the client's chart as a timeline event, and the discharged client will now appear in the "Archived" tab of the Clients Dashboard. Once clients have been moved to your "Archived" tab, they can no longer schedule follow-up appointments with you from the archived account. To re-establish care with an archived client, update their status to 'unarchived.'
For no-show clients or intake cancellations, you can archive them directly without completing a discharge summary note by selecting the "Skip Note" option.
⚠️ Important: If a client passes away, please archive their information and use the Help Widget to contact a Provider Support agent. The agent will assist you in connecting with the Clinical Team for further clarification and guidance on next steps.
Add a recommendation to a discharge
Note: All provider types can use the Discharge Summary Note and recommend their clients. However, the "Referrals Provided" section of the Discharge Summary Note is only visible to therapists.
The final step in completing your Discharge Summary Note is filling out the "Referrals Provided" section. Grow offers a multi-select list of follow-up actions to streamline the documentation process. This helps indicate how referrals are being provided to the client and meet the aftercare plan requirements of various payors.
If you'd like to provide the client with additional Grow Therapy provider recommendations:
From the "Referrals provided" section, check the "Grow Therapy to assist with provider rematch" box and select Save & archive in the upper right.
Next, you'll be redirected to the recommendation automation. Select your options from the dropdown menus and review the recommendations to create a list of referrals, which will be sent to the client via email. A detailed walkthrough is available here.
Unarchive a discharged client
If a discharged client requests to reinstate their care plan with you, you must unarchive them to schedule additional sessions. To unarchive a client:
Click here or navigate to Clients > Archived via the sidebar navigation.
Select the client to open their client chart.
Select Actions in the top right > select Unarchive client.
The client is once again listed under the All Active tab.