Tracking potency history across homeopathy follow-ups
· 5 min read
At a follow-up, the most useful question in homeopathy usually isn't "what's wrong today?" It's "what did we give last time, and what happened after?" The answer helps inform whether you wait, repeat, move up a potency or change the remedy. That makes the record behind it as important as any single consultation.
This post is about that record: what it needs to hold, why it gets lost on paper and in generic software, and what a good one looks like.
What a potency history is
A potency history is the ordered list of every remedy and potency prescribed within a case, alongside what happened after each one.
Each entry answers a handful of plain questions:
- What was prescribed. The remedy, the potency, the form, the dose and the number of days.
- When it was given. The date of the visit, and how long it was until the next one.
- Whether the patient actually received it. It was dispensed at the clinic, or the patient got it somewhere else.
- How the case responded. What changed by the next visit, in the doctor's own observations.
Reading down that list tells you the story of the case. Reading any single visit on its own doesn't.
Why it gets lost
On paper, the history is spread across pages. The case sheet from the first visit is in one place, the follow-up notes are written wherever there was room, and the potency is sometimes in the margin. Rebuilding the sequence means leafing back through every visit, and that happens at the start of a consultation, with the patient already sitting down.
In generic clinic software, the prescription is usually a free-text box. "Sulph 200", "Sulphur 200C" and "sulphur 200 ch" are three different strings, so the software can't line them up or show them in order. The history is there somewhere, but only a person reading every note can see it.
When the record can be overwritten, the history can change after the fact. If last month's prescription is edited to correct a typo, and nothing shows that it was edited, the record no longer says what was actually given on that day.
What a good potency history looks like
Here is one case, laid out the way it should read at the fourth visit:
| Visit | Remedy and potency | Given | By the next visit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 June | Sulphur 30C, globules, once daily, 7 days | Dispensed | Itching less at night; sleep better |
| 2 July | Sulphur 30C, globules, once daily, 7 days | Dispensed | Improvement held, then levelled off |
| 30 July | Sulphur 200C, globules, single dose | Dispensed elsewhere | Skin clearer; appetite back |
| 27 August | — | Today's visit |
With that in front of you, the question for today is already framed. The notes are still worth reading in full, but you aren't rebuilding the sequence from them.
A few properties make the table trustworthy:
- Remedies and potencies are picked, not typed. Every entry spells the remedy the same way, so the software can put them in order and nothing gets split across three spellings.
- The prescription is structured. Remedy, potency, form, dose and days are separate fields, not one line of text, so a potency change is visible at a glance.
- Dispensing is recorded against the visit. "Dispensed elsewhere" matters. If the patient bought the remedy from a pharmacy and took something slightly different, you want to know that before reading the response as the effect of what you prescribed.
- Finalized visits don't change. A correction is added as an amendment, with its own date, and the original stays readable. The history shows what was prescribed on the day, while later corrections or observations are recorded separately rather than rewriting the original visit.
Follow-ups are where the history earns its keep
A potency history only builds up if the patient comes back. Two habits help:
- Book the return visit during the consultation, while the patient is still in the room, rather than asking them to call.
- Look at who is due and overdue every day. A patient who was supposed to return two weeks ago and didn't is a gap in the case, and it's easier to close while it's still recent.
For patients who are overdue, a short WhatsApp message is usually the quickest way to reach them. It works best when the message is already written and you only have to read it and press send from the clinic's own number.
If you keep cases on paper today
Most of this is already how careful homeopaths work on paper: one case sheet per patient, visits written in order, nothing crossed out. What paper can't do is put the history in a single line at the start of a visit, or keep spellings consistent across a thousand records.
KeepPulsing Homeopathy includes the complete Boericke materia medica, so remedies and potencies can be picked from a standardized list. Each prescription is stored as remedy, potency, form, dose and days. Dispensing records whether each remedy was given at the clinic or elsewhere. A finalized consultation can't be changed, and corrections are added as amendments. The result is every potency given and how the case answered it, in order: the record you read before repeating or moving up.