Registering a New Patient: Details, Duplicates and Minors

Registering a new patient at the clinic means creating their record with the essential details needed to book and reach them, after checking they are not already on file. If the patient is a minor, the record captures their legal guardian from day one; if they report allergies, those are made visible. The clinical side is completed in the consultation.

What details to collect at registration

Whatever the clinic needs to manage the patient: identify them, contact them and know whether they are a minor. Registration is not an interview: it is the first record, and the clinical information is gathered by the practitioner in the consultation.

Detail	Why the clinic needs it
First name and surnames	To identify the patient and tell them apart from others with a similar name.
Date of birth	To know whether they are a minor and to tell apart two people with the same name.
Mobile phone	To confirm, move or cancel appointments.
Email address	To have a second, written way of reaching them.
DNI or NIE (Spanish national or foreigner ID number)	To identify them without room for error and avoid repeated records.
Town or city	To complete their contact details.

Before adding a field to the registration form, ask yourself what you will use it for. Article 5.1.c of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) states that personal data shall be “adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed”. A piece of data nobody uses does not help you manage anything, yet you still have to safeguard it.

How to avoid duplicate records

By searching before you create, and by being wary of matches: the same ID number, the same phone number or the same email address may mean the patient already exists.

A duplicate record splits the patient’s information in two: the appointment is in one, the signed document in the other and the allergy only in the first. Article 15.4 of Spain’s Law 41/2002 on patient autonomy says that the medical record “shall be kept in accordance with criteria of unity and integration, at least within each care institution”, and two records for the same person make that difficult. It also clashes with the GDPR accuracy principle, under which data shall be “accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date”: with two records, it is easy for the new phone number to be in one and the old one in the other.

The opposite trap exists too: merging two records because they share a phone number. A mother and her child, or a couple, may give the same mobile number and the same email address. A matching phone number or email address is a reason to take a look, not proof that it is the same person. An ID number, on the other hand, belongs to one person only.

Minors: the guardian from day one

If the date of birth shows that the patient is a minor, the record must state who their legal guardian is and how to reach them. Reception needs this to know who to speak to, who to call and who accompanies the patient.

Having the guardian on the record does not mean the guardian always signs. Article 9 of Law 41/2002 regulates when consent is given by representation and, for example, says that “where the patient is an emancipated minor or aged over 16 and does not fall within cases b) and c) of the previous paragraph, consent cannot be given by representation”, except for an action that poses a serious risk to the minor’s life or health. Who signs in each case depends on the situation, not on the registration form.

Allergies and the data protection document

If the patient reports a known allergy when registering, it must go into their record and be visible to the team from the first appointment. What to ask in the consultation and how to assess it is for the practitioner; registration is responsible for making sure that what the patient already knows and says does not stay on a piece of paper.

The same goes for paperwork: if the data protection document is prepared at registration, it stays pending signature, and the practical thing is for the patient to sign it at reception before going in to the consultation. We explain how to do this without paperwork in signing consent forms on a tablet.

Registration in Mi Clínica, step by step

In Mi Clínica, registering a patient takes three short steps, with a clear message on screen: “Solo lo imprescindible. La historia clínica se completa después” (Only the essentials. The medical record is completed afterwards).

1. Basic details. First name, surnames and date of birth are mandatory on the form; the DNI or NIE is optional and, if it has the form of a Spanish DNI or NIE, the program checks the control letter. If the date of birth is that of a minor, the legal guardian block appears: their name is mandatory and the relationship is indicated (mother, father, legal guardian, relative or carer).
2. Contact. Mobile phone, which is also mandatory on the form, email, town or city and how they heard about you. This is where you tick whether the data protection document is prepared for signing.
3. Minimum information. Specialty of interest, known allergies and notes for reception, such as time preferences.

Several things happen at once when you save:

• If patients with that phone number or email address already exist, the program shows them and asks whether this is a different person, for example a relative. You can review them or create the record anyway: it does not merge records on its own.
• If a patient with that DNI or NIE already exists, it will not let you create another, even if you try to force it.
• Allergies go into the general medical record and appear as a warning in the header of the patient’s record, which the whole team sees.
• If the patient is a minor, the record shows the minor warning with the name of their guardian.
• The patient is given a sequential record number.
• If you ticked it, their data protection document is prepared, pending signature.

From the last step you can simply save, or save and create their first appointment. If a detail changes later, “Editar datos del paciente” (Edit patient details) opens the same wizard with the record filled in; allergies, however, are edited in the medical record.

Common registration mistakes

Almost all of them can be avoided with a reception routine that the whole team follows in the same way:

• Creating without searching. Search by surname and by phone number before opening a new registration, especially if the patient says they came in some time ago.
• Typing the name any old way. Full first name and surnames, as they appear on the patient’s ID: whether a search finds them depends on it.
• Leaving the date of birth for later. Without it you cannot tell whether the patient is a minor, nor tell apart two patients with the same name.
• Using the notes as the medical record. Notes for reception are for administration, such as schedules or the preferred way of making contact; clinical information goes in the medical record, which the “Recepción” (Reception) role cannot access with its default permissions. We explain who can see each part in who can see the medical record.
• Leaving the signature pending with no date. A document left pending “for next time” ends up forgotten.

If you are coming from another program, you do not need to register everyone one by one: Mi Clínica imports patients and appointments from CSV or Excel with a preview, as we explain in switching clinic management software. The summary of features is on the Mi Clínica page (in Spanish).

Sources consulted

Checked on 11 October 2026. We link to the original source so that you can consult the current text.

• Reglamento (UE) 2016/679, Reglamento general de protección de datos. BOE (DOUE).
• Ley 41/2002, básica reguladora de la autonomía del paciente y de derechos y obligaciones en materia de información y documentación clínica (texto consolidado). BOE.