Sort every refill request by its safest next action

The situation

Refill requests come in through every door. One arrives through the patient portal, one by text, one from the pharmacy, and one gets mentioned during a visit. One needs labs first, one needs a doctor's review, and one is a bigger clinical issue in disguise.

The refill itself is not the problem. The problem is that each request needs a different level of attention. Some are routine, some need review, some need patient follow-up, and some should not be refilled without an appointment. Treat them all the same and the day fills with noise.

Steps

1. Set up four lanes as clinic Tags Ask an Admin to create one clinic Tag for each lane in Task Settings: Routine refill, Needs clinical review, Needs patient follow-up and Blocked. Keep it to those four.
2. Make each request a Task, whatever door it came through Use the patient-page Task button or + in Tasks, confirm Patient, and choose its lane in the Tag field. For a text in a linked Spruce conversation, select the lightbulb and review the recommended Task before you select Save task.
3. Give it an owner, a next action and a due date In Description, write the safest next action, not the fastest way to clear it. In Assigned to, choose the person who should take that action, not whoever saw it first, and send anything that needs clinical review to the provider. Set Due on for when they should see it in My Tasks.
4. Save each lane as a filter In Tasks, filter by the lane's Tag with Status set to To do, then select Save filter and name it after the lane. The provider opens Needs clinical review, and the team works Routine refill.
5. Move the Task when its lane changes When a routine refill turns out to need review, change its Tag and Assigned to and add a comment saying why. Set a blocked request to Waiting while it waits on labs or an appointment, and mark it Done only when nothing is left to do.

The outcome

The doctor sees the requests that actually need judgment, and the team handles routine refills with confidence. Every request has an owner, a next action and a due date, so patients get faster answers and requests stop disappearing into the inbox.