Practice Better lets you track your clients' lab tests from order to results, right inside their client record. Create a lab order manually, attach results as they come in, and share updates with your client whenever you're ready.
In this article:
- Before You Begin
- Creating a Manual Lab Order
- Searching and Filtering Your Labs List
- Viewing and Updating a Lab Order
- Sharing a Lab with Your Client
- Annotating a Lab Order
- Reassigning a Lab to a Team Member
- Archiving and Deleting Lab Orders
Before You Begin
Manual lab tracking is available on every Practice Better plan, including Sprout.
Manual tracking vs. connected lab integrations
The steps below cover manually creating and tracking a lab order inside Practice Better. This is the right choice when you order a test outside of Practice Better, by phone, fax, or in person, and just want a record of it, along with a place to store results and share them with your client.
If you want to order labs and receive results automatically, connect one of our lab integrations instead: Fullscript, Rupa Health, or Evexia Diagnostics. Once connected, your Labs page's Fast Action Button will also show Create Fullscript order, Create Rupa order, and Create Evexia order alongside Create lab order.
Orders placed through an integration sync results back to Practice Better automatically, and follow their own linking, archiving, and cancellation rules, covered in each integration's own article:
- Setting up your Evexia Diagnostics Integration →
- Setting up your Rupa Health Integration →
- Setting up your Fullscript Integration for Labs and Supplements →
Deleting a lab inside Practice Better never cancels a real order with a connected lab company. If you need to cancel an order placed through an integration, use that integration's own cancel option or contact the lab company directly.
Creating a Manual Lab Order
You can create a manual lab order from either of two places, and the Fast Action Button options are the same in both:
First go to:
- My Practice > Labs, or
- A specific client's record, under their Labs page.
To create a new lab:
- Click the red Fast Action Button in the bottom-right corner and select Create lab.
- If you started from My Practice > Labs, select the client the lab is for. If you started from a client's record, this step is skipped since the client is already selected.
- Enter a name for the lab.
- Enter the order date.
- Select a lab status. Lab status is just a label for you and your client; it doesn't trigger any notifications on its own.
Choose from:- In Progress
- Requisition Ready
- Results Available
- Cancelled
- Optionally, attach any lab documents you already have. You can attach up to 10 files per lab, with a 25 MB limit per file. A file attachment isn't required to save a lab order.
- Optionally, toggle Share this lab with my client and, if you want to notify them right away, check Notify my client about this update.
- Click Create to save the lab order.
Lab orders you haven't shared yet stay in Draft status, visible only to you and your team. You can share and edit any of these details later; see Sharing a Lab with Your Client below.
📍 Note: Sharing a lab at the moment you create it moves it straight to Shared status, skipping the Draft stage entirely.
Searching and Filtering Your Labs List
As your Labs list grows, use the search and filter options at the top of My Practice > Labs to find what you need.
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Search labs: search by lab name.
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Practitioner filter (Team plan): narrow results to a specific practitioner, or view labs across your whole team.
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Publish status filter: filter by Any publish status, Draft/Shared (the default), Draft, Shared, or Archived.
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Lab status filter: filter by Any lab status, In Progress, Requisition Ready, Results Available, or Cancelled.
💡 Tip: Combine filters, for example, Shared labs with a Results Available status, to quickly find recently completed labs you haven't reviewed yet.
Viewing and Updating a Lab Order
To view a lab's full details, click the lab's title, or click the More Options menu (3 dots) next to it and select View.
From the lab details page, click Edit to update the lab name, order date, status, sharing settings, or attached files. Click Update to save your changes. You can make these edits at any time, even after a lab has been shared and viewed by your client.
The options available in the More Options menu (3 dots) depend on whether the lab is still a draft or has been shared with your client.
Draft labs More Options:
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Shared labs More Options:
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📍 Note: Open in Client Hub opens the practitioner-side Client Hub panel, a quick-reference view of everything tied to that client. It's different from the Client Portal, which is what your client sees when they log in.
Viewing a Lab Linked to a Session Note
If you've linked a lab to a client's session note or protocol, the Labs tab of the note editor only gives you the option to Unlink it; there's no way to view the lab's details from inside the note itself. To view a lab that's linked to a note, open the client's Client Hub and locate the lab there instead.
Sharing a Lab with Your Client
You can share a lab with your client as soon as you create it, or at any point afterward.
To share a draft lab:
- Open the lab and click Edit, or use the More Options menu (3 dots) > Share with client.
- Toggle Share this lab with my client on.
- Optionally, check Notify my client about this update to send them a notification. If you leave this unchecked, the lab becomes visible to your client without sending them a notification.
- Click Update to save.
Once shared, the lab moves from Draft to Shared status, and your client can view it from the Labs section of their Client Portal. Shared lab results don't appear in your client's Documents section, only under Labs.
You can unshare a lab at any time by turning off the sharing toggle. Unsharing doesn't send your client a notification, so they won't know the lab was removed from their view unless you tell them separately.
Annotating a Lab Order
For manual labs, click the More Options menu (3 dots) > View to open the lab’s details page.
Click Annotate on a lab's details page to add a note.
By default, annotations are private to you. To share one with your client, enable Share note with my client, and optionally check the notification setting to let them know.
If you enable the option to share the annotation before the lab itself is shared with your client, you’ll see a warning about this: “This note will be visible to your client after the lab is shared.”
You can change an annotation's sharing setting at any time, and each annotation displays an icon showing whether it's private or shared.
You can edit or delete an annotation after creating it. Deleting a shared annotation removes it from your client's view as well.
Reassigning a Lab to a Team Member
On the Team plan, you can reassign a lab order to a different practitioner on your team. From the More Options menu (3 dots), select Re-assign to team member. Reassigning changes who owns the lab object; the new practitioner becomes responsible for it going forward.
Archiving and Deleting Lab Orders
Archiving a Lab
Once a lab has been shared, you can archive it from the More Options menu (3 dots). Archiving removes the lab from your client's view in the Client Portal, but keeps it available to you in the practitioner portal for your own records. Draft labs don't have an archive option, since they haven't been shared with a client yet; delete a draft instead if you no longer need it.
Deleting a Lab
Deleting a lab removes it permanently for both you and your client; this action can't be undone.
Deleting a lab inside Practice Better only removes the record here. If the lab was originally placed through a connected integration (Fullscript, Rupa Health, or Evexia Diagnostics), deleting it in Practice Better doesn't cancel the real order with that lab company. Cancel it directly through the integration instead.
⚠️ Important: Your regulatory body may require you to keep records of documents and resources associated with your clients. Confirm your own recordkeeping obligations before permanently deleting a lab.