Bert:
Thank you for that authoritative and conclusive answer. There can be no further wondering!
Thanks also for the workarounds, by the way. It is a lonely thing if you post a question and nobody even takes a stab at it.
Now, you are of course correct that there is only room for so many buttons. Major structural modifications should only be made if there is a major need.
However, the main issue to come out of this thread is that Amazing Charts allows no way to set aside fake patients or family (or horses!) from statistical analysis of the practice. I consider that pretty major.
The solution, on the other hand, seems relatively simple, in programming terms, namely this:
***ATTENTION***
Amazing Charts needs to be changed so that making a patient "Inactive" exempts them from statistical analysis of your practice!***ATTENTION***
(I hope that got somebody's attention)
Making the above change is only logical. If someone has been dismissed, or dies, or falls off your active panel of patients, they should not be considered part of your practice.
If you are trying to demonstrate to a prospective partner or a third-party payor how wonderful your statistics are, you do not want the data muddied by people who have been dismissed from your practice for non-compliance, for instance.
A useful by-product of this simple improvement would be that we could make entries for Aunt Erma, William Saffire, or even Misty of Chincoteague without screwing up our practice stats.
Brian
