Extending a license adds another term to a patient who is still active. It is the counterpart to renewing: you renew a license that has already expired, and you extend one that has not expired yet. If the patient's status badge still shows them as active, extending is what you want.

Extend a license when a patient is partway through their term and you already know they will be continuing — for example at a follow-up visit, or when you are reviewing your patient list ahead of a batch of expiries. You do not have to wait for the license to run out. Patients on a lifetime license have no end date to add to, so the option does not appear for them.

If the license has already expired, use Renew License instead.

The panel shows the patient's current expiry date and the new expiry date side by side before you confirm, so you can see exactly what the extension gives them.

Extending requires the Manage patients permission.

The extra term is added on to the end of the patient's existing license, not to today's date. A 12-month extension applied six months into a patient's year takes their expiry date 12 months past the day it would have ended, so none of their remaining time is lost.

The patient receives a confirmation email, and their access simply carries on. There is no gap, nothing changes on their device, and they do not need to do anything. Their progress, check-in history, and settings are all kept, because it is the same license on the same account.

Extensions run for 12 months for standard organisations. Organisations on Oto Unlimited can choose the term when extending, in the same way they can when issuing a new license.

An extension is billed as a further term, exactly as a new license would be:

Every extension is recorded on the patient's record, including who extended the license and when, so your team can always see the history of a patient's access.