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# Patients

Patients represent individual people who hold insurance policies.

The Patient resource has optional `externalId` and `metadata` fields, which may be used to map keys/values back into your system.
Uniqueness is not enforced on these values. The value in `externalId` will be returned in payout/billing reports.

The `coverage` field references the Patient's *active* insurance. Expect a single entry, associating secondary insurance is not yet supported.

### New Patient Workflow

Typically, new user hard eligibility checks are executed without an associated Patient.
This is because new resources are created while retrying due to user input or payer issues.

When a confirmed Policy is found, it can be associated either when creating the Patient or by updating the Patient - setting the `coverage` value to the Policy ID.