---
title: How to Add a Contact to an Encounter
slug: portal-sub/how-to-add-a-contact-to-an-encounter
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-03-04T12:03:13.605Z
---

Often during an encounter, a patient may raise more than one health concern, hence additional contacts will need to be added. Best practice would be to add a new contact for each specific assessment, including any related notes and actions.

The following steps illustrate how to quickly add a new contact to an encounter.

1. Click the 'New' Icon on the Toolbar

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2. The new contact will appear in the encounter as shown below

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3. To link a diagnosis code to the contact, click on the newly inserted **Contact 2** heading.
4. The 'Contact Properties' Window will open. Either enter the diagnosis code or the diagnosis description in the 'Diagnosis' field. Alternatively, you can click on the 'Ellipsis' button to the left of the 'diagnosis' field

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5. Clicking the ‘Ellipsis’ button will open the 'Select disease code' window. Start typing the disease code in the ‘Look for:’ field and click the ‘Search’ button. Note: you can enter a partial disease code or description of the disease which will display a list of matching records.

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6. Select the applicable disease and Click 'OK'.

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7. The contacts with the linked diagnosis description will now be displayed in the encounter

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:::hint{type="info"}
**Note: **Even though you can add more than 3 contacts, the Billing Window will only pull the first 3 contacts from the encounter into the billing screen as shown below:
![Graphical user interface, text, application, email Description automatically generated](https://api.qa.archbee.co/api/optimize/zICxj0dnLereb6UUrBA3-/gG4zeS2nmilyP55ybHRSY_we87jxyfzg5wxgqz31iqnmsptcv1u4teq.png)


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:::hint{type="info"}
**Tip: **Keyboard shortcuts can be used to create a new contact (Ctrl + N) or open the contact properties window (Ctrl + E).

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