CSV User Guide:
Rhinogram can import 2 sets of information:
Patients and Responsible Parties (Phase I)
Linking Patients with their Responsible Parties (Phase II)
This document will outline how to import your patients and responsible parties into Rhinogram.
Regardless of the Practice Management System (PMS) you use for your practice to maintain patient information (demographics, appointments, etc), that system has the ability to export information. We know all systems store different data and have different export capabilities so if you need assistance with exporting data from your specific PMS, we recommend you contact your PMS vendor.
The field names (column headers) that your PMS uses will likely be different from ours. For example, your PMS might export a patient’s name as “lastname,firstname”, but Rhinogram maintains that same data in two unique columns, “firstName” and “lastName”, respectively.
For the best results, Rhinogram will need clean data from your organization. To that end, please follow these two steps after you have exported the data from your PMS.
Rename the column headers with the column headers listed below. All column headers must match formatting exactly (including lower/upper case)
Amend the data in the fields beneath the column headers (as needed) by following the associated “rules” for how the data must be sent to Rhinogram.
Note: We recommend (but do not require) externalid, lastName, firstName, and birthday in your CSV file export.
Column Headers (Recommended)
externalId | i.e. “3456” or “c3ba714d-47e7-4eb4-8713-b60730179c89”, etc. (notice capital “I”) |
lastName | Free Text, but must not contain comma “,” (notice the capital “N”) |
firstName | Free Text, but must not contain comma “,”(notice the capital “N”) |
birthday | Special formatting REQUIRED** YYYY-MM-DD “1987-07-22” Other formats supported (NOT recommended) “07 22 1987”, “7/22/1987” |
Note: externalID is a unique ID that represents the patient, responsible party or guarantor in the file. When an externalID is present, Rhinogram uses it to match data for subsequent imports. When no externalID is present, Rhinogram uses the first and last name in conjunction with the Date of Birth to match. Matching is key to avoid creating duplicate records in Rhinogram in the event we import multiple files or if your practice becomes Integrated with your PMS in the future.
Column Headers (Additional Information)
One or more personal email addresses separated by comma. Invalid emails (missing "@" and domain ".com") will be skipped. Multiple personal emails should be listed together in the same column MS Excel example
| |
workEmail | Same as email (notice the capital “E”) This will be stored in your Rhinogram organization as a work email. |
middleName | (notice the capital “N”) |
preferredName | Contact’s name by which they preferred to be called. ie: "Sam” (notice the capital “N”) |
sex | (Male or Female only) |
cellPhone | Contact's cell phone number(s). (notice the capital “P”) Ideally the number(s) should contain 10 digits. i.e. 555-555-5555 or “555-555-5555, 555.555.6789, 5556667890” Any individual cell phone number may contain any separating character other than a comma. A comma must be used to separate multiple cell phone numbers (as in the case of email addresses above.) Note: If cell phone numbers do not contain 10 digits, they may be imported into Rhinogram, but they will NOT be textable. |
homePhone | Contact's home phone number. Same as cellPhone, but will be stored in Rhinogram as a home phone number. |
workPhone | Same as cellPhone and homePhone, but will be stored in Rhinogram as a work phone number. |
phone | Same as cellPhone and homePhone, but will be stored in Rhinogram as “Other” phone number. |
userType | "Patient" or "Other" only (notice the capital “T”) Note: This column designates the contact as either a Patient or Other (responsible party or guarantor). If no user type exists in the file, the contact will default to "Other". |
note | Any special notes you have maintained in your PMS concerning this contact. (Notice there is no “s” on the column header “note” |
tags | Any custom tags you have created to assist at a later date in searching, filtering, etc. patients. ie: "mother, office1" (notice there is an “s” on the end of “tags”) Note: Some common uses of tags are identifying the primary provider for the contact (#Smith) or location (#Chat, #Charleston). You can also use tags to identify patient populations (#Diabetic, #PreMed, #Cigna). |
When using any spreadsheet program (as shown below) to amend your exported CSV file information, the columns may be in any order, but must display column headers exactly as listed above.
For more help on CSV Formatting, see our CSV Formatting Tips and Tricks article located in the Rhinogram Help Center.
Congratulations! Your patients and responsible parties have been exported, the file is clean and you’ve sent the data to Rhinogram for import. (This means you’ve completed Phase I of the CSV Import).
If your file contained responsible parties and you want your patients and responsible parties to be connected (Phase II), check out our Linking Patients with their Responsible Parties article located in the Rhinogram Help Center.