Dot phrase reference

Type a period, pick a phrase

A dot phrase (dotphrase) is a shortcut that starts with a period. Type . in the note and a list opens; keep typing to narrow it (.hp finds .hpi), then press Enter or Tab to insert. Every phrase does one of four things:

Blanks and dropdowns. *** is a blank to fill and {{A|B}} is a dropdown that starts on its first choice. Press F2 to jump to the next blank or dropdown and Shift+F2 to go back. Hero's own templates always put the neutral choice first (“Not addressed”, “Not examined”, “—”), so nothing is attested until you choose it.

Options. Many chart phrases take an option in square brackets, typed with no space: .age[written], .lastvitals[3], .visitbp[first], .ga[long]. A space closes the list.

Any capitals. Phrase names work however you capitalize them: .Age, .LastVisit and @Age@ fill in the same as .age, .lastvisit and @age@.

The visit’s date. Date phrases and “this visit” phrases use the visit’s date (the appointment date, else the day the encounter was opened) in the practice’s time zone, so charting early or late still stamps the visit day. With no visit open they use today.

Permissions. A chart phrase only inserts what you are allowed to see. Without the right access it inserts nothing, never an error, so a note does not reveal that hidden data exists.

Build a note from Hero’s note modules

Every practice has these built-in text phrases. Each is a module of a standard E/M-focused note; .soap inserts the whole set and the others insert one part. Modules marked “from the chart” fill that list at the moment you insert them, with a reconciliation dropdown so the note says whether you reviewed it.

Search the chart from the note

These open a search box in the note (and in Patient Instructions and letters) instead of inserting text. What you pick goes in as a card or as text.

Insert the patient, yourself and dates

Chart phrases that every practice has. Options go in brackets, for example .name[formal] or .today[short].

Pull diagnoses, history, vitals and scores

The “today” and “visit” phrases above can also fill Smart Block fields; see Values pulled from the chart.

Sum up the visit: .visitsummary, .visitorders, .rxtoday and .visittime

Visit phrases write what you did this visit from the chart, so nothing is guessed: no AI, no wrong age, no wrong visit. They stay live until you sign. Order a medication or send a screener and the phrase updates by itself within a few seconds.

Put the visit at the top of your note

1. Open the visit’s note, type .visitsummary and press Enter. A green bar and a small Live label mark the phrase while it can still update.
2. Place your orders as usual. The summary updates by itself within a few seconds.
3. Click Sign & Close Visit. The summary becomes plain text in the signed note, exactly as it read at signing.

To put only today’s medications in the note, see 6.38b.

In a template. Put visit phrases in a phrase of your own or a visit type’s starter text as @visitsummary@, @visitorders@, @rxtoday@ or @visittime@. They are live in every note the template starts, so the top of the note fills itself without typing a phrase each time.

Good to know

• Only on screen. The green bar and Live label show only while you edit. Printouts, faxes, PDFs and exports show ordinary text.
• Your own words win. Edit the text and it stops updating and stays as you wrote it.
• Times. Visit times come from what the visit recorded: check-in, start and check-out; video join and end; the phone connection. With nothing recorded they use the appointment’s time and length. If only the start is known, the note says “(end not recorded)” rather than guessing.
• Medication labels. A label shows only when the chart says so plainly: New when the patient was not on that medicine, Changed when the strength differs, Refilled when the strength and directions match. Otherwise the line has no label.
• Permissions. If your role can’t see a kind of order (for example labs), the phrase leaves it out and says so: “Not shown (your role can’t view them): labs.”
• Addenda. In an addendum, visit phrases already in the note stay as they were signed.

Put the medications you prescribed or refilled today into the note: .rxtoday

Looking for a smart block that writes today’s prescriptions and refills into your note? Use .rxtoday (also .medstoday and .refillstoday). It lists every medication prescribed, refilled, changed or stopped this visit, with its directions, quantity and refills, so you never type them or look them up in Orders.

1. Type .rxtoday where today’s medications belong in the note. For example under Plan, then press Enter. Or put @rxtoday@ in your refill or follow-up template so every note starts with it.
2. Prescribe, refill or stop medications as usual. The list keeps up by itself until you sign, for example New: sertraline 50 mg oral tablet, take 1 tablet by mouth once daily for 30 days, #30 tablet, no refills.
3. Sign the visit. The list becomes plain text in the signed note, exactly as it read at signing.

• Labels. Each medication is marked New, Changed (with the old strength), Refilled or Stopped only when the chart shows it plainly; otherwise the line has no label.
• Everything else you ordered. For labs, imaging, referrals, screeners and education as well, use .visitorders; for the whole top of the note, .visitsummary (6.38a).
• Reordering several at once. Repeat last visit adds every prescription from an earlier visit in one step, and .rxtoday then lists them all.

Use the specialty phrases

Specialty phrases cover pregnancy and obstetrics (.prenatal, .obintake, .obvisit, .postpartum, .ga, .edd), psychiatry, endoscopy, wellness visits and more. Some phrases belong to a specialty feature that an administrator turns on in Admin → Additional Features. While the feature is off its phrases are hidden from the list; a phrase of your own with the same name still works.

Keep a plan with the patient: persistent dot phrases

Use a persistent dot phrase for text that should follow one patient from visit to visit instead of being rewritten each time: a psychotherapy treatment plan, therapy objectives, or a pregnancy exam log. A persistent phrase saves its text to the patient. The first time you type it for a patient, the note gets the template with chart values filled and *** blanks to write. What you write is saved to that patient and comes back the next time anyone types the phrase for them, so a treatment plan or a pregnancy log carries forward from visit to visit. In the note it shows as a blue box labeled with the phrase’s name. A saved value holds up to 10,000 characters.

Create a persistent dot phrase

1. Open Settings → Dot Phrases → Persistent (Saved per patient).
2. Fill in Create Persistent Phrase. Shortcut (for example .pTherapyObjective1), Description, and Placeholder Label, the name shown in the blue box. Press Save.
3. Type the shortcut in a patient’s note. Write the text the first time; at every later visit for that patient the phrase brings back what was saved, ready to update.

Your own persistent phrases are listed with Hero’s. Hero’s persistent phrases show a System chip and can’t be edited.

Use Smart Blocks: insert, fill and share them

To use a Smart Block, type a period and its shortcut in the note (for example .awv or .pt) and pick it from the list. A Smart Block is a form inside the note. In the dot phrase list it shows as “smart form (AI-fillable)”. Fill it with the keyboard or mouse, or dictate: during dictation or an ambient recording the block fills from what was said, and only from what was said. Fields can pull values from the chart while they are empty; a small link mark shows a pulled value. The block prints as ordinary note text. A note template can place a block with @awv@, @pt@ and so on (Note templates).

A practice can have its own copy of a built-in block under the same shortcut, for example a .spravato whose staff fields list your nurses (Hero can set one up with your practice’s staff list); it then replaces Hero’s block in your practice, and the Smart Blocks list marks it Replaces built-in.

Build your own block, or copy a built-in one and change it, under Settings → Dot Phrases → Smart Blocks (6.45).

Share a Smart Block with others

1. Open Settings → Dot Phrases → Smart Blocks. The list has three groups: Mine (yours to edit), Practice (shared by colleagues; everyone here can insert them) and Built-in (Hero’s; clone one to make it your own).
2. Click Share on one of your blocks under Mine (tooltip Share with the practice), or turn on Share with the practice in the block builder. It gets a Shared chip and everyone at the practice can insert it; colleagues see it under Practice as Shared by <your name>, read-only, and can clone it.
3. Stop sharing with Stop sharing; colleagues no longer see it.

Document endoscopy with the colonoscopy and EGD blocks

Type .colonoscopy for a colonoscopy or flexible sigmoidoscopy, or .egd for an upper endoscopy. An administrator turns on Endoscopy procedure notes (the blocks) and, separately, Endoscopy coding (the codes) in Admin → Additional Features; both start off. The block has four tabs.

Enter findings quickly

• Anatomy map. Click a segment of the colon or upper GI tract to add a finding there, with that segment’s usual findings offered first. Numbered markers show each finding; segments beyond the reached extent are drawn as not reached.
• Quick entry. Press F or / and type a finding in shorthand, in any order (p 6 is asc cs ret j1: a 6 mm sessile polyp in the ascending colon, cold snare, retrieved, jar 1). A preview sentence shows as you type; Enter adds it and ↑ edits the last one.
• Favorites. Keys 1–9 add a favorite finding (“Polyp, cold snare, retrieved”, diverticulosis, an irregular Z-line, Barrett’s with Seattle biopsies); keep up to 18 of your own.
• Normal defaults. N fills normal defaults into empty items only, each tagged “Default”: the indication, ASA II, sedation, extent and landmarks, a Boston prep score of 3-3-3 when the cecum was reached, retroflexion, no complications and the guideline recall. Times, doses, providers, measurements and a finding’s size, site or technique are never defaulted. Built-in “All normal” templates exist for colonoscopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy and EGD.
• Your templates. Alt+S saves the tabs you choose as a template; T and a digit applies one. Patient-specific values are never saved.
• From the chart. Alt+F suggests indications with their evidence (prior procedures, the problem list, family history, a positive stool test, low hemoglobin or ferritin, a colorectal screening care gap, a referral) and fills medications, allergies, prior procedures, family history and labs into empty fields.
• Dictation. D dictates; the block understands endoscopy shorthand and makes one row per finding, keeping times and prep scores only when they were said.

What the block works out for you

• Times. Alt+I, Alt+C and Alt+O stamp scope in, cecum reached and scope out with the current time. Insertion and withdrawal minutes are calculated, and a withdrawal timer shows OK from 8 minutes and warns under 6.
• Repeat interval. A suggested recall from the guidelines (US Multi-Society Task Force polyp, family history and age rules for colonoscopy, with a pending-pathology version; ACG Barrett’s and AASLD varices rules and short-interval rechecks for EGD). Alt+Enter accepts it and writes the guideline basis into the note. On an EGD, a pinch at least 2 cm below the Z-line suggests a hiatal hernia with its length.
• Readiness. “Ready n/m” lists what is still missing (indication, ASA, sedation, consent, prep, extent, landmarks, withdrawal time, polyp size and retrieval, LA grade, recall) and jumps to each item. It never blocks signing.
• Note text. The report prints as a section-headed note: sedation, times with insertion and withdrawal minutes, prep with its Boston total and adequacy, extent and landmarks, each finding as a sentence, the impression, and a Specimens list. Alt+R shows the exact text.

Codes

With Endoscopy coding on, the block’s Codes section shows the procedure and diagnosis codes as you chart, and completing the visit adds them to Charge Capture with a note explaining each choice.

Modifier 59 is added only on specific NCCI pairs; XS is never added automatically. Press ? in the block for every shortcut; Alt+1–4 or [ ] switch tabs, and typing 332 in the prep row sets all three Boston scores.

Record a Medicare wellness visit with the AWV block

Type .awv for the initial annual wellness visit (G0438), the subsequent annual wellness visit (G0439) or the Welcome to Medicare visit (G0402). It needs Medicare annual wellness visits, which an administrator turns on under Admin → Care programs; it starts off.

• Sections. Visit (type and supervised staff), health risk assessment, history and current providers, measurements with BMI, cognition, depression, functional ability and home safety, falls with the CDC STEADI tests, alcohol, tobacco and drug use, physical activity and nutrition, advance care planning with a timer (Alt+T), the prevention plan, and other services today. A Welcome to Medicare visit hides the health risk assessment and cognition sections.
• Nothing defaulted. An empty field means not assessed and the note prints only what you recorded. Quick entries (“No falls, steady, not worried”) record a normal section in one click without touching scores or minutes.
• From the chart. Empty fields fill from the patient’s health risk assessment and screens for this visit, today’s vitals, opioid prescriptions, the health care agent, an advance directive and the screening schedule, using the chart phrases in 6.38 and 6.39.
• Eligibility and checklist. A line at the top says which visit Medicare pays today and when the last one was; chips show each required element, done or missing, and jump to it.
• Codes. Charge Capture adds the visit code and companion codes (advance care planning 99497, G0136, G0444, G0442/G0443, tobacco counseling, the Welcome visit ECG) only for what was documented, with their own minutes where Medicare requires them, and explains each line.
• Prevention plan. Alt+P builds the written plan from the chart and a guideline table, to use in the note, print or send to the portal.

Two note templates (“Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (with .awv)” and a prose version) let dictation fill the visit. For the program around the block, see Medicare wellness visits and care management.

Chart tokens list: put chart values (@chartmeds@, @chartallergies@) inside your own phrases

This is the full list of tokens such as @chartmeds@, @chartallergies@, @name@ and @today@. When you write a phrase, these tokens in its text are filled each time the phrase is inserted.

A token that can’t be filled shows an error in brackets, and in a persistent template it becomes a *** blank. A chart token you don’t have access to inserts nothing.

Make, share and replace phrases

Open Settings → Dot Phrases. It has five sections:

1. Write a phrase. Phrases are written in the same editor as the note, so formatting, *** blanks, {{A|B}} dropdowns and the tokens in 6.44 all work. Providers and administrators can write phrases; an administrator without a provider profile can still add practice phrases.
2. Share it. Turn on sharing and the phrase shows a Shared chip: everyone at the practice can use it.
3. Copy one to change it. Make a copy of any phrase, a built-in one included, into My phrases and word it your way.

Which phrase wins. When two phrases share a shortcut, yours wins, then Hero’s built-in one, then a colleague’s shared one. So your own .soap replaces Hero’s, but a colleague’s shared .soap does not; the settings page marks a phrase that is “used instead”.

Smart Blocks. The builder has a field list, field settings and a live preview. Fields can be checkboxes, chips, selects, text, numbers, dates, a tooth grid, an exam checklist, photo findings or physical therapy tables, each with its own AI fill instructions and an optional “Pull from chart” from a chart phrase. A block shortcut is lowercase letters and digits starting with a letter; picker names such as .lab are reserved. Cloning a built-in block makes your own copy; a clone of a block that needs a feature keeps needing it.

Elsewhere. Map a phrase to a visit type as its starter text (Note templates), choose a phrase as your co-sign statement (Co-signing), or make a practice phrase the default refill note or message (Refill Center).