Time frame for making decisions regarding anticoagulant treatment. Time frame of the decisions. Initial management (yellow box) spans the first 5 to 21 days following a diagnosis of a new VTE and includes issues concerning whether the patient can be treated at home or it they require admission to the hospital, the use of thrombolytic therapy, whether an inferior vena cava filter needs to be placed, and the initial anticoagulant therapy. During primary treatment, anticoagulant therapy is continued for 3 to 6 months total and represents the minimal duration of treatment for the VTE. After completion of the primary treatment, the next decision concerns whether anticoagulant therapy will be discontinued or if it will be continued for secondary prevention of recurrent VTE. Typically, secondary prevention is continued indefinitely, although patients should be reevaluated on a regular basis to review the benefits and risks of continued anticoagulant therapy. Our choice of terminology reflects the distinct clinical intentions of the different phases of VTE management, linking them to important clinical decisions addressed in the guidelines rather than using terms that reflect the relative duration of therapy. Adapted from the ASH 2020 guidelines for the management of VTE.¹¹