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Intakes and prescriber review

A product that needs a prescription (503A) can’t be fulfilled until a prescriber has reviewed the patient’s health intake. This page covers how an intake gets completed and what happens next.

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The flow

1

You place the order

POST /orders with a prescription product. If the order needs an intake, the response includes an intake object (url and token) — the patient’s hosted intake link — and the order’s script_status is pending.
2

The intake is completed

Either the patient completes it on the hosted link, or your app sends the answers with POST /intakes (below). Patients with no VitaRelay login are also emailed the link, on your own domain — see Emails your patients receive.
3

The order moves to prescriber review

The order is flagged ready for review, the prescription request is created in the Internal Doctor Network’s queue, the intake.submitted webhook fires, and the patient gets a “we received your intake” email.
4

A prescriber signs

When the prescriber signs the eScript the intake.reviewed webhook fires and the order can be dispatched to the pharmacy.

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Completing the intake from your app

  • category must be async (everything except hormone therapy) or hormone. Any other value returns 422 validation_failed before anything is created.
  • responses must meet the minimum completeness rules; an incomplete set returns 422 and creates nothing.
  • Identify the patient with patient_id or your own external_patient_id.
  • If the patient has an order waiting on an intake, these answers complete that order’s intake. The response id is that intake, and it includes the order_id. If there’s no waiting order, a standalone intake is created.
  • Send an external_intake_id so the call is safe to retry — see Idempotency and retries.

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Checking progress

  • GET /patients/{patientId}/intake/status — a PHI-free status probe (needs intakes:read).
  • Webhooks — intake.submitted when it’s in, intake.reviewed when a prescriber signs.
  • Re-send the patient’s link — POST /patients/{patientId}/intake/send-link.

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If an order seems stuck

An order that shows script_status: pending with an intake still in draft is waiting on the patient: nothing is wrong, and nothing has reached a prescriber yet. Send the patient their link again, or complete the intake with POST /intakes. Once the intake is submitted the request appears for the prescriber and, on your dashboard, under pending prescription requests.