How to Create a Prescription

Prescriptions are written from the client card. This guide takes you from setting up your prescribers to issuing, signing and sending a prescription, including how each prescription is linked to the client’s appointment.

Step 1: Navigate to Setup

Start by logging into your Pabau account using your login credentials. To create prescriptions, you will need to first ensure that the prescription form is created in your account. Navigate to the Setup page and access your forms under the Clinical section.

Setup → Clinical → Forms

Step 2: Insert Prescription Info for Prescribers

Prescription information should be added to the profiles of staff members who will be creating prescriptions.

Add prescription info to each prescriber

This information includes credentials that enable your staff members to create prescriptions, such as GMC numbers, DEA numbers, or NPI numbers.

To add prescription info to the relevant staff members, follow the steps provided in this article.

Step 3: Navigate to the Client Card

Navigate to the search bar at the top of the page and proceed to type at least three letters of the client's name for whom you wish to create a prescription.

Search for the client

Step 4: Create a Prescription

Once you are viewing the client’s profile, click the Create button (the blue plus sign at the bottom right of the page) to open the Create menu, then click Prescription.

If your clinic is in the United States and has the DoseSpot integration connected, the menu shows two Prescription rows, and you can use either:

1. Prescribe via DoseSpot opens the client’s record in DoseSpot in a new tab, where you write and send the electronic prescription. You need to be an approved DoseSpot prescriber, and the client’s name, date of birth, email, full address and phone number must be filled in. If anything is missing, a message lists what to add.
2. Prescribe medication with allergy & interaction checks opens Pabau’s own prescription builder, which the rest of this guide walks through.

A US clinic with DoseSpot connected sees both Prescription rows

Step 5: Select a Template

Select the form you want to use from your existing templates. If you haven't created a prescription form template yet, read our article on how to create a prescription form. If your clinic has only one prescription template, it opens straight away.

Choose a prescription template

Step 6: Check the Linked Appointment

The top bar of the prescription window shows which of the client’s appointments the prescription belongs to, so the prescription stays with the visit it was written at. When you start a new prescription from the Create menu and the client has an appointment today (by your clinic’s time), Pabau links it for you:

• One appointment today: that appointment is linked.
• Several appointments today: Pabau links the one whose service is attached to the prescription template in Setup. If that doesn’t settle it, it links the appointment in progress, or else the one closest to the current time.
• No appointment today: nothing is linked, and the chip reads Select Appointment.

Cancelled appointments and no-shows are never linked automatically. A link Pabau made for you is labelled Appointment · auto-linked, and hovering it shows “Linked automatically to today’s appointment — click to change or remove”.

1. Check the appointment chip in the top bar. To change it, click the chip to open Select Appointment.
2. Click the appointment the prescription belongs to. The linked appointment has a tick.
3. Or click No appointment to save the prescription without a link.

Today’s appointment, linked automatically

Pick a different appointment, or No appointment

Once you pick, the chip shows your choice without the auto-linked label. Cancelled appointments stay in the list and are marked as cancelled, so you can still link a prescription to one if you need to.

Step 7: Complete the Prescription Form

After selecting the template, you'll be prompted to complete the fields in the form.

Choose the prescriber

Click the Prescriber field in the top bar and search for the staff member issuing the prescription. If you are a prescriber yourself, you are selected automatically; otherwise, you must pick a prescriber before you can continue. You can also change the issue date here, and the client’s recorded allergies are shown alongside.

Pick the prescriber

Check the Prescription History panel

The left-hand Prescription history panel lists the client’s previous prescriptions, each with its date, prescriber and status (Final or Draft). The panel is collapsed to a thin rail by default — click it to open. Click an entry to expand it, then click Reissue to copy its medication onto the new prescription. The Medications search bar, the Prescriber field, and the Issue & sign prescription button are all available from this same screen.

Earlier prescriptions in Prescription history

Search for and add the medication

Search for the drug you need to prescribe by name, brand or active ingredient (type at least three characters). Use the source tabs to search All sources, your Favourites, or a specific drug database such as BNF or SignatureRx. Allergy checks run automatically as you build the prescription.

Search your drug sources

Add the dosage

To set the dosage, hover over the medication card and click the pencil icon (Edit medication). In the pop-up you can:

• Set the Dose, Strength, Format, Quantity, Frequency, Route and Duration, mark the item as a repeat prescription, and add a note to the pharmacy.
• Apply a suggested dosage with one click, where the formulary provides standard dosing for the medication.

Set the dosage

 

Preview drug information

After adding a drug, you can preview its clinical reference on the right side of the window, under the Knowledgebase tab. This shows Side Effects, Cautions, Allergy & cross-sensitivity, and Indications for the medication. The Safety tab alongside it cross-checks every medication against the client’s recorded allergies and flags any conflicts so you can review them before signing.

Clinical reference on the Knowledgebase tab

When the prescription is ready, click Issue & sign prescription at the bottom right.

Step 8: Confirm Patient Details

After clicking Issue & sign prescription, any fillable fields on the prescription template appear in a Complete prescription form step (Step 1 of 2) — for example, confirming the client’s date of birth. Templates with no fillable fields skip straight to signing.

Fill in the template’s fields

Complete the required fields and click Continue to sign, or Cancel to go back.

Step 9: Sign the Prescription

Next, add the prescriber’s signature in the Sign prescription window. Draw it directly in the signature box, or use Quick Sign to stamp the prescriber’s name. Then click Sign & continue.

Sign the prescription

Step 10: Choose What to Do Next

Once the prescription is created, a window asks what you would like to do next: Print Prescription, Download Prescription, Label, Email Prescription, or Send To Pharmacy. Each option runs as soon as you click it, and you can run more than one. Click Done to finish — the new prescription is stored on the Prescriptions tab of the client’s EMR section.

What's next?

• Prescriptions (New Client Card): edit, repeat, print and send prescriptions you have created.
• How to Use the Prescriptions Page: every prescription in your clinic in one list.
• How to Set Up the DoseSpot Integration (US clinics).

---