Branch a Clinical Case Into a Lab Case

Branching links the clinic's consultation to the lab's work in Cympha dental lab case management software, so the new lab case starts with the plan and files.

When a consultation recommends treatment that needs lab work (crowns, aligners, surgical guides, implant prostheses), the clinical case stays in the practice. You branch to a new lab case that inherits the plan and goes through the orchestration flow.

When to branch

Branch when:

The consultation's recommended treatment includes a lab deliverable (e.g. crown #19, aligner setup, surgical guide for site #29)
You've finalised the plan with the patient (approved, or you're confident enough to start design before formal approval)
You're ready to involve a lab — Cympha sends the case to the lab the moment you submit

Don't branch when:

The treatment is in-house only (extraction, restoration with the chairside mill, etc.)
The consultation is still being drafted
You need more diagnostic records first

How to branch

From the case detail page, click Branch this case (top-right of the case header).

A picker dialog opens with options listed newest-first:

No consultation reference — branch from the whole clinical case, no consultation-specific prefill. Use this when you didn't run a structured consultation, or you want to attach the lab to general case context only.
A consultation by name and date — pick the consultation that contains the treatment plan you want the lab to act on.

Pick one. You're routed to the new-case form, pre-populated.

What gets carried over

When you pick a consultation, the new lab case is auto-populated:

Patient demographics — name, DOB, contact from the parent case (you can edit before submitting)
Chief complaint — the consultation's Chief Concern text becomes the new case's chief complaint
Description — the consultation's treatment notes are carried into the case description, so the lab sees your plan context rather than just a recommendation tagline
Files — the files attached to the consultation are pre-selected for inheritance. Untick any you don't want copied; add other parent-case files via the picker.

What you still pick yourself

Lab — search for your lab by name (partial match works, and the search also matches the lab manager's name or email). There is no public directory — you connect with labs you already know.
Service — the lab's own services (their fields, their pricing, their forms)
Additional files — beyond the consultation's selection, drag-drop or pick from the parent case
Submission consent flags — terms, privacy
Physical materials inbound — toggle if you're mailing models / impressions

After submitting

Cympha:

Creates the child case
Records a CASE_BRANCHED event on both the parent and the child (the parent's activity log notes "branched to lab case <id>"; the child's notes "branched from clinical case <id>")
The child case enters the lab orchestration ladder
The chosen lab sees the case in their queue with your treatment notes in the description

What the lab sees

The lab opens the new case and immediately sees:

The patient details
The chief complaint
Your treatment notes in the description
All inherited files in the file list
The lab's own structured fields (their service form) for them to fill / verify

No email thread. No PDF. No "we said zirconia, right?" call back.

Re-branching from a different consultation

If you've run multiple consultations on the same case (e.g. initial general consultation, then a focused implant consultation later), you can branch from either — or both, creating separate lab cases.

Common questions

Can I branch without a consultation? Yes — pick "No consultation reference." You won't get the auto-populated chief complaint and description, but everything else (file selection, lab pick) works the same.

Can I branch the same consultation twice? Yes — each branch creates a new child lab case. Useful if you need separate lab work in different specialties (e.g. surgical guide AND prosthesis).

Does the patient see the lab case? No. The patient share is scoped to the consultation on the clinical case. The lab case is a separate workflow with separate participants.

Run a Consultation Start-to-Finish
Cookbook: Two-Handed Case Creation
Cookbook: How Consultations Work on Cympha