What are Therapy Plan expiration messages?

Question: Connect Care prescribers increasingly receive In Basket messages to the effect that a Therapy Plan is about to expire. What does this mean?

Context: Therapy Plans help organize the delivery of tests and therapies across multiple encounters for a specific health condition. They are used for a wide range of interventions (e.g., dialysis, iron sucrose treatments) and are increasingly encountered by Connect Care users. 

By default, all Therapy Plan orders (usually for repeating interventions) expire after 12 months, with the exception of antimicrobial plans (which expire at 7 days). The lead prescriber assigned to a plan will receive an In Basket notice at the 11-month mark. This prompts to either renew or discontinue the plan.

Answer: Such messages are not received if a Therapy Plan is set to discontinue once a treatment program is complete. Open ended plans need to be reconsidered at least once a year because there are limits to the number of such plans that can be managed at any one time, and it is important to confirm that ongoing plans are still needed.