Every chiropractor knows the tension between finishing a hands-on adjustment and turning to the computer before the next patient walks in. ChiroTouch's Chart Note Editor was redesigned to shrink that gap, and the single biggest lever most practices have not yet pulled is the advanced macro field system. Beyond simple text buttons, the Macro Setup Tool lets you embed interactive prompts directly into your macro text—prompts that ask you for a specific spine segment, a body region, a date, a number, or a multiple-choice answer, then drop the selected value straight into the note. The macros menu holds up to twenty buttons per SOAP section, and because you can attach charges and diagnoses to each button, a single click can post the adjustment code, log the relevant ICD diagnosis, and insert the narrative text all at once.
Building a Macro Set That Matches Your Actual Exam Flow
Start in the Macro Setup Tool (reachable from the Setup button on the Chart Note Editor or from Setup Macros in the left navigation pane). Create a dedicated macro set for each case type you see regularly—say, one for acute low-back subluxations and another for cervical adjustments with accompanying therapy. Inside a text button, place your cursor where you want a prompt to appear and select the Advanced tab. The SPINE command opens a clickable spinal-segment dialog so you can tap T12, L1, L2 and have them inserted in sequence; SPINE-LR adds a left/right/complete qualifier, which is especially useful when you are reporting the exact laterality of a subluxation in your findings. For broader anatomic references, the REGION command (A through E) prompts you to pick from a predefined body-area list, and you can customize the region labels through the Setup dialog if your terminology differs from the defaults.
The ASK and CHOOSE ONE/CHOOSE ANY commands work well for the subjective details that vary patient to patient. Type a question such as "Pain on initial presentation (0–10):" into an ASK field, and the system will pause, wait for your numeric entry, and insert the value. A CHOOSE ANY field might present options like "No neurological deficits," "Mild paresthesia LLE," or "Gait deviation noted," letting you tap the applicable ones and have them flow into the note. You can also drop in patient-specific fields—FIRST_NAME, CURR_DX, REFER_PHYS, INJURY_DATE—so the narrative reads naturally without manual typing. When you save a macro button, the ChiroTouch spell-check dictionary (which uses a medical lexicon) will still run over the final text, catching typos in the free-typed portions while leaving your inserted fields intact.
Once your macro set is in place, the day-to-day workflow tightens considerably. Open the Chart Note Editor from the Provider All-in-One screen or the ChiroTouch Basic application, and if the patient completed a self-check-in subjective, you will see the Pat. Subjective button ready to insert that data into the Subjective portion of your SOAP note. From there, click through your macro buttons in the order you performed the exam; the breadcrumb navigation above the buttons lets you jump between subcategories quickly, and the Hide Macros toggle gives you more writing room when you need to type a longer narrative. If a prior visit is a close match, the Copy button pulls the previous note into a dialog where you can select which SOAP fields to carry over, then you simply adjust the spine segments, pain scores, and plan changes. The Data tab at the bottom of the editor shows a grid of every advanced-macro response you entered in that session, with blue question text you can click to revise a selection without scrolling back through the note.
A few housekeeping habits keep the system running smoothly for the whole office. Because floating subjectives are available to any provider for three days after a patient fills them out, a doctor covering for a colleague can still pull the patient's self-reported pain and goals into their own note without re-asking. Use the Flag button to color-code notes that require follow-up—say, a patient whose subluxation pattern has not improved after the prescribed treatment plan period shown on the Treatment Plan screen. When you are ready to finalize, the Sign button captures an electronic signature (either live on a signature pad or from a stored one) and stamps a timestamp at the bottom of the note; that same signature is appended automatically when the note is printed or exported. For office managers and ChiroTouch support staff reviewing workflow questions, the key takeaway is that most documentation-speed complaints trace back to under-used macro fields: if a provider is still typing spine segments by hand or re-entering the same therapy description every visit, the macro set likely needs a SPINE-LR prompt or a dedicated therapy text button rather than more time at the keyboard.