---
title: "Record an encounter"
summary: "Start an encounter, record what happened at the visit, and end it. You have seven days to change one before it locks."
source: https://practor.app/en-za/help/patients-and-records/record-an-encounter
published: 2026-09-14T06:45:13.775Z
updated: 2026-09-29T07:14:52.534Z
category: "Patients and records"
---

An encounter is the visit itself: what you observed, what you did, what you decided. It is a separate record from the calendar appointment, and an encounter can exist with no appointment at all. A consult you start from a patient's record is a complete encounter, with no appointment behind it.

## Start an encounter

Two ways in.

1. From an appointment on the calendar, click it and press **Start encounter** on the panel.
2. From the patient's record, open **Encounters & notes** and press **New encounter**. There's no appointment behind one started this way, and there doesn't need to be.

> [!NOTE]
> **Start encounter** in the action menu beside **Schedule appointment** is a shortcut to the second way. It opens **Encounters & notes** and starts one as the page arrives, so there's nothing to press once you're there.

A patient can have one encounter open at a time. If a colleague already has an encounter open for that patient, Practor names the colleague and shows you their open encounter rather than creating a second one.

## Start outside the appointment time

Starting an encounter more than 30 minutes before the appointment begins, or after it has ended, opens a dialog first. The dialog asks how the encounter and the appointment should line up.

| When you start | What you're offered |
| --- | --- |
| More than 30 minutes early | Pull the appointment forward to now. The dialog lists any other bookings the moved appointment would run into |
| During the appointment, or up to 30 minutes before | Nothing to resolve, the encounter starts |
| After the appointment ended | Link it to today, which records the encounter as retrospective and marks it with a chip |

## What you can record

Each of these is its own entry on the encounter:

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Diagnosis | Procedure |
| Observation | Medication |
| Allergy | Note |
| Assessment | Care plan |

Diagnoses and procedures recorded here are what the invoice draws on. When you bill from an encounter, the codes and prices are already there.

![An open encounter, with the eight kinds of entry along the top](https://res.cloudinary.com/drmnydbcs/image/upload/c_limit,w_1600/f_auto,q_auto:good/v1/help/encounters/detail.png?_a=BAMAOGDh0#1440x900 "Every entry type, and End encounter, on one screen.")

## End an encounter

Press **End encounter**, at the top right of the same panel. That closes the visit and completes the appointment it was linked to.

The encounter then moves into review, where it can still be edited.

## Review and locking

An encounter in review can be changed for **seven days**. The record shows how long is left.

You can finalise it yourself at any point in those seven days. If you don't, Practor finalises it for you once the seven days are up, then locks it an hour later.

You get told before that happens. A notification arrives when two days are left and again when one is, and an email reaches you once the encounter has locked.

> [!WARNING]
> Locking is permanent. A locked encounter cannot be edited, reopened or amended, and Practor has no way to attach a correction to a locked encounter afterwards. Practor records who finalised the encounter and when.

Anything the record needs to say has to be in the encounter before it locks.

## Related

- [Add a patient](/help/patients-and-records/add-a-patient)
- [Create and send an invoice](/help/billing-and-claims/create-and-send-an-invoice)