What is pre-visit planning?
Pre-visit planning is everything a practice does before the patient walks in: the chart reviewed, the outside records gathered, the open items surfaced, the note started. Done well, it changes the visit. Done manually, it costs hours the schedule does not have.
Written by Dr. Tattvam A. Nair, Co-Founder & COO of Layrd. Updated August 2026.
The workflow
In its formal version, pre-visit planning is a morning huddle and a chart review: for each patient on today's schedule, what happened since the last visit, which results came back, what is due under quality programs, and what today should accomplish. Some practices add pre-visit labs, so results exist before the conversation that needs them.
Why it loses to the day
The review takes real time per patient, multiplied by a full schedule, and no one's day contains that time. So it happens in fragments between rooms, or it slides into the physician's evening, or it does not happen and the first minutes of each visit are spent scrolling the chart while the patient waits.
What a prepared visit looks like
The physician walks in already knowing the story: the cardiology consult happened, the MRI is back, the last medication change is 6 weeks old, the screening is due. The visit starts at the decision instead of at the reconstruction.
Where Layrd fits
Layrd does the review and writes the note before the patient arrives: what changed since the last encounter, what is open, what today needs to address, in your own charting style with every line cited to its source. It is ready as many days ahead as you want, and physicians get 12 to 16 hours a week back.
What does pre-visit planning include?
Reviewing the chart before the visit, gathering outside records and results, checking what is due under quality programs, and preparing the note so the visit starts informed. Many practices formalize it as a morning huddle plus chart review.
Why do practices struggle to do it?
Because planning tomorrow competes with surviving today. The review takes real time per patient, nobody's schedule contains that time, and so it slides into the physician's evening.
What changes when visits are prepared?
The first minutes of the visit go to the patient instead of the scroll bar. The physician walks in knowing what changed, what is open, and what today needs to address.
Can pre-visit planning be automated?
The chart review and note preparation can. Layrd writes each visit's note before the patient arrives, from everything in the record, in the physician's own style with every line cited. Physicians get 12 to 16 hours a week back.
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