For Providers:
Document Group Sessions

athenaClinicals

As a behavioral health provider, you’ll be gathering insights from group sessions that you’ll want to document in participating patient’s charts. When you sign off on a group session encounter document in athenaOne, the system automatically adds a copy of your group notes to each participating patient’s chart.

Clients participating in group sessions may also reach out to you directly to cancel or reschedule appointments. Review steps to update patient appointments from Quickview or to update recurring sessions.

In this section:

Document a group session
Close & send for signature or send for review
Amend group notes
Update appointments for group session patients

Document a group session

After a group session, click athenaOne in the top navigation bar to access the Inbox.
In the calendar view to the right of the Inbox, select the date tab for the group session or click the TODAY tab if the session occurred that day.

The appointments for the group session appear together, are color coded by group appointment type, and list the same appointment time.
After you've checked patients in or during prep mode, click any one of the group patients listed for the session to start documenting. athenaOne copies the group notes you enter into each participating patient's chart.
The encounter opens in the Document stage with a Group Note section appearing at the top. This section lists the appointment type and group session participants.

In Group Note, enter your group session notes.

(Optional) Save a Group Note as a macro: To save the information entered as a macro for reuse in other fields, click the macro icon . Enter a shortcut name. Select Make available in current section only to limit macro use to Group Notes, update the text as needed, and click Save.

Note
To use the saved text for another group session, enter a dot (.) in the Group Note field and begin typing the shortcut name. In the macro menu, select the shortcut name to insert the text.
Scroll down to Reason for Visit and click Add to expand the Diagnoses & Orders menu. Begin typing a reason for the patient attending the session and select it from results.
Scroll down to Assessment & Plan. Expand the added diagnosis to check for an ICD-10 code.
In the encounter navigation, click Sign-Off. Review the encounter summary. When ready, click Close & Go to Next. This automatically navigates you to the encounter document for the next patient in the group. In that document, the group note you entered is locked against editing. The reason for the visit you entered in the first document automatically appears as well.

Continue clicking Sign-Off and Close & Go to Next until the documents for all group session participants are signed and closed.

Close & send for signature or send for review

If you need to send an encounter document for additional provider sign-off or for another provider to review, click the arrow to the right of Close & Go to Next. Select Close & Send for Signature or Send for Review.

Close & Send for Signature: If prompted, enter a reason for the visit. In Send Encounter for Signature, begin typing the name of the provider for additional sign-off. Enter as many providers as needed. Click Close, Send & Go to Next to navigate to the next encounter document for a group session patient. Alternatively, select Close & Send to only send the encounter for the current patient.
The providers you identify receive notification in their inboxes to open and sign for the encounter.
Send for Review: Enter the name or names of providers to review. Click Close, Send & Go to Next to navigate to the document for the next patient in the group. Repeat to send all group session documents for review. The providers you indicate receive notification in their inboxes to open and review the group session documents.

Amend group notes

You can edit a group therapy note, if needed, while an encounter is still open. Once you sign off on a group session note for a patient and close the encounter, the group note is locked against editing.

If you still need to modify a group note after closing a group session encounter, you can use the encounter amendment workflow to make changes.

Important
Using the amendment process to update a group note for one patient will not automatically update the note for all other group session patients. You must amend the group note for each group session participant individually.

Amend a group session note

Access the patient's chart. Click the Visits tab in the left navigation menu and click View More to the right of the closed group encounter.
In the upper right corner, click the arrow next to Done and select Amend Encounter.
The patient briefing opens with the encounter ready for amendment.
In the Document stage of the encounter, update the group note.
Click Close Amendment. A banner appears to confirm the update. Repeat to amend the group note for each patient in the group session.

Update appointments for group session patients

As a provider, group session patients may contact you directly with requests to cancel or reschedule an appointment. To cancel or reschedule, search for the patient by name or patient ID and select from results. The patient’s Quickview opens.

Note
If your search returns multiple results, Find a Patient opens with all results listed. Click Quickview in the action menu to the right of the patient to access it.

In the patient’s Quickview, click Scheduling > View Patient Appointments.

In View Patient Appointments, click cancel or reschedule in the action menu to the right of an appointment. If an appointment is recurring, click recurrence to update individual dates and times within the series.

Cancel Appointment: In Cancel Appointment, select the appointments to cancel. Scroll down and click Next: Cancellation reason. Select a reason for the cancellation and enter a note if desired. Click Next: Review. Review changes and click Confirm cancellation.
Reschedule Appointment: In Edit Appointment, locate the Resource field. Select your name or the name of another provider. In Appointment type, select the type. Click a slot in the schedule and select Use this slot. This automatically updates the appointment to the date and time of the slot selected.
Click Review. Select a reason for rescheduling and click Next: Review. Check the updated appointment details and then click Confirm updates.