Here's a scenario that plays out in therapy clinics every week: a clinician provides four weeks of treatment. The plan of care lapsed two weeks ago. Nobody noticed. Four weeks of sessions are now at risk of being denied because there was no current, signed plan on file for those dates of service.
It happens in speech, occupational and physical therapy alike, and in any practice whose payers want a physician-signed plan of care or order before they'll pay. Plans and orders are valid for a period or a number of visits set by the payer and the discipline. When one lapses without being renewed, the sessions delivered after that date are potentially unbillable.
The financial impact is real. A single denied session at $150 is annoying. Four weeks of denied sessions for a client seen twice weekly is $1,200. Multiply that across several clients and a lapsed renewal becomes one of the most expensive mistakes a small clinic can make.
The fix isn't working harder — it's a system that keeps every renewal date in front of the team and chases the physician's signature until it comes back.
Why Plans of Care Lapse Unnoticed
The root cause is usually the same: the renewal date is written on the plan, filed in a chart, and never actively monitored. The clinician is focused on the next session, not checking file dates. The front desk doesn't have visibility into clinical documents. The physician's office has the plan in a fax tray. The billing team discovers the gap only when claims start getting denied — weeks or months later.
This is a systems problem, not a people problem. No amount of "be more careful" fixes it. You need tracking that doesn't depend on anyone remembering.
Building the Tracking System
The system has three parts: one place that shows every date that's coming due, a way to get the plan of care to the physician and track it until it's signed, and a daily nudge that keeps the list in view.
The Due Board
In a GetDocsSigned healthcare account, each patient's physician order, authorization and evaluation dates live in the patient and order tracker. The Due board shows orders that are overdue, due this month, and due next month, with next month split into the 1st to 15th and the 16th to the end.
Say a plan of care started April 1 and runs 90 days. It's due June 30. In May it sits under next month's 16th-to-end column; on June 1 it moves to due this month; on July 1, if nobody has acted, it's overdue. The board is your early warning system, and it reads the same whether the plan belongs to a speech, occupational or physical therapy patient.
Faxing the Plan of Care
Plans of care and physician orders are faxed to the physician from the Due board, not sent as e-signature envelopes. Each order carries a status — due, sent, needs well-check, received, or cancelled — and the date it was last chased.
When an order has been sent and nothing has come back after 5 days, it's due for a chase. For orders faxed from GetDocsSigned, you can turn on automatic re-fax. When the signed copy arrives in the fax inbox, you match it to the patient by hand and mark the order received.
The patient's own signature on the plan, and the clinician's and supervisor's, happen where they already do: in your EHR, or in a healthcare form with a signature field.
A Daily Email
A daily chase email tells your team how many orders need attention, with a link to the Due board. It gives a count and a link, not a list of patients. That's enough to start the day knowing whether anything is slipping, without putting patient information in an inbox.
The Renewal Workflow
Here's what a streamlined renewal looks like:
When it appears under next month: The clinician reviews progress and drafts the updated plan of care with new goals.
Early in the due month: The patient (or guardian) signs the updated plan in your EHR, or in a healthcare form with a signature field. The clinician signs, and the supervisor co-signs if your setting requires it.
Fax to the physician: The plan of care is faxed to the physician from the Due board, and its status moves to sent.
After 5 days with no reply: It's chased. Re-fax by hand, or let automatic re-fax do it for orders faxed from GetDocsSigned.
Signed copy returns: Match the returned fax to the patient and mark the order received.
Before the old plan lapses: Front desk or billing submits any re-authorization the payer needs, with the new signed plan attached.
The administrative part for the clinician is a few minutes: drafting the plan and signing it. The Due board and the daily email keep the deadline in front of the team.
Tying Orders to Authorizations
Plan-of-care renewals and insurance authorizations are often linked but tracked separately — which is why things fall through the cracks. Keeping both dates on the same patient makes the gaps visible.
A patient's row in the tracker might look like this:
- Physician order (plan of care): due June 30, on the Due board under due this month
- Insurance authorization: through June 10
- Re-evaluation: due in July
Everything visible. Everything tracked. Everything on the board before deadlines arrive.
What This Costs vs. What It Saves
Healthcare accounts start at $199 a month per practice, with unlimited staff users. That includes the BAA and setting up your forms from your blank PDFs. Practices with several locations get a quote.
Against that, the four weeks of denied sessions in the example above come to $1,200 — about six months of the account. And the clinician time saved on tracking, printing, faxing, and chasing signatures goes back into sessions. A therapist who reclaims 30 minutes a day gains roughly 10 hours a month; at $150 a session, that's about $1,500 in revenue.
Every practice that bills for plans of care should have renewal tracking that doesn't depend on memory. See how the Due board works.
GetDocsSigned sets up healthcare accounts by hand with a signed BAA: healthcare forms, patient records, order tracking and fax. E-signature, payments and the AI form builder are outside that environment. Unlimited users. See how it works