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This guide builds on the first Recipe and adds a more powerful idea: an ingredient. You will find: Active male patients aged 50 or older who have had 3 or more visits in the last 2 years. This is only an example. Your practice might use the same pattern to find patients with a certain number of visits, prescriptions, observations, reports, reminders, appointments, or other related records.

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Start with the first Recipe

Begin with the Recipe from Create your first Recipe:
  • Status is Active
  • Extraction Opt-Out is False
  • Age (Years) is greater than or equal to 50
  • Sex is Male
Then add the visit-history ingredient below it. The first Recipe completed with the default patient filters, Age (Years) is greater than or equal to 50, and Sex is Male.

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Add a Visits ingredient

1

Select Add Ingredient

Under the patient filters, select Add Ingredient.A new ingredient card below the patient filters, starting with 'Where each patient' and a relationship chooser.
2

Choose the relationship

In the relationship box, choose has a count of.The ingredient relationship menu showing has any, has no, only has, has a count of, and has an average.
3

Set the count

Choose at least, then enter 3.
4

Choose the related table

Select Visits.The related table chooser showing Visits.
At this point, the ingredient says: Where each patient has a count of at least 3 Visits where… The “where…” part is important. Without it, PracticeMate would count all visits, not just recent visits. The Visits ingredient showing has a count of at least 3 Visits, before the Visit Date filter is added.

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Limit the count to the last two years

Add a filter inside the Visits ingredient:
1

Select Add Filter inside the Visits ingredient

Use the Add Filter button inside the Visits card, not the one in the Patients section.
2

Choose Visit Date

Select Visit Date.
3

Choose the date operator

Select is greater than or equal to.
4

Enter the relative date

Type 2 years ago in the value box. If PracticeMate offers a relative-date suggestion, choose it.The Visit Date value box showing a relative-date suggestion for 2 years ago.
Your Recipe should look like this: The Recipe Builder showing patient filters plus a Visits ingredient with a count of at least 3 and Visit Date set to 2 years ago.

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Read the Recipe back

Before testing, read the Recipe in plain English:
Find active patients who have not opted out, are male, are aged 50 or older, and have at least 3 visits where the visit date is within the last 2 years.
That read-back is a useful habit. If the sentence sounds wrong, the Recipe probably needs adjusting.

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Test before saving

Select Test. If the result is unexpectedly high, check that Visit Date is inside the Visits ingredient. If the result is unexpectedly low, check that the relationship says has a count of at least 3, not has any or has no.
The Visits filter belongs inside the ingredient because it controls which visits are counted. A Visit Date filter outside the ingredient would be a different kind of Recipe.

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Save the Recipe

Use a name that explains the purpose: Active male patients aged 50+ with 3+ visits in 2 years Then select Save.
For Recipes that will be used by other team members, include the timeframe in the name. “3+ visits in 2 years” is clearer than “frequent visitors”.
Because this Recipe has more moving parts, Version history can be especially helpful. If your team later adjusts the visit count, timeframe, or ingredient, the previous saved version remains available so you can review it and restore it if needed. Older versions remain available for 365 days.

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What you learned

You used:
  • Add Ingredient to look at related records
  • has a count of to count those related records
  • at least 3 to set the minimum count
  • Visits as the related table
  • Visit Date to limit which visits are counted
  • a relative date, 2 years ago
The same pattern works for many Recipe questions: choose the related record type, choose whether the patient must have it, must not have it, or must have a certain number of it, then add filters inside that ingredient.