Add a patient manually
The fastest way to add a patient is from the ➕ New Patient Visit button in the sidebar. Use this when someone walks in and you want to chart them immediately.
Required fields
You only need four things to create a patient:
- First name
- Last name
- Date of birth
- Email or phone (we recommend both)
Everything else can be filled in over time.
The full demographics panel
Once the patient exists, open their record and click Demographics. You'll see fields organized into sections:
Identity
- Title (Dr., Mr., Ms.)
- Preferred first name (what the patient likes to be called)
- Middle name
- Pronouns
- Date of birth, gender, relationship status
Contact
- Mobile phone, home phone, work phone
- Time zone (used for appointment reminders)
Address
- Street, unit, city, state, zip, country
- A separate mailing address if it differs
Work
- Occupation, hours per week
Secondary contact
- Name, phone, relationship (e.g. spouse, parent), email
- Whether to include them on email communications
Account
- Patient account number (your internal reference if you use one — doesn't have to be unique)
- Additional notes
Quick add vs. full intake
You don't need to fill everything out the day you create the record. A common flow:
- At first visit: quick add (name, DOB, contact). Run the visit.
- Send a form: assign your intake form. The patient fills it from the portal.
- Review: the submission shows up under the patient's record. Pull anything important into the demographics panel.
That keeps the front desk fast and offloads data entry to the patient.
Avoiding duplicates
Before creating a new patient, type their name in All Patients to make sure they're not already in the system. ApexMentum doesn't merge duplicates automatically — once two records exist, fixing them is a manual cleanup task.