Patient Health Questionnaire Includes Decline Option Copied

What’s changing

After this release, all practices will use the standard Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) form that includes an option for patients to decline the screening, which the previous version didn’t allow.

If a patient selects the decline option and submits the form, iKnowMed automatically checks the “Patient declined to complete assessment” box on the Patient Hx > Depression Screening & Plan tab. iKnowMed will also reflect the declination in the Observations tab, where the Depression Screening question “Patient was screened for depression?” will show No, with Reason: Patient Refused.

This declination is also captured in the Form Completion Report, Admin Form Completion Report, and Sent Forms Report, the same as any other completed form.

Why this matters

Previously, patients had no way to formally decline the PHQ, which could lead to incomplete or abandoned forms and made it harder for practices to distinguish a true decline from a patient who simply didn’t finish. With this update, declines are captured cleanly in the chart and reflected accurately across all three reporting tools, so practices retain full visibility into send and completion rates without any change to their existing reporting workflow.