Quick Reference — To register a new patient

athenaCollector

 

For more information about the fields on the Patient Registration page, see the Field Reference.

1. Display the Patient Registration page: On the Main Menu, click Patients. Under PATIENT REGISTRATION, click New Patient Registration.

Identification

2. Legal last name — Enter the patient's legal last name.
3. Legal first name — Enter the patient's legal first name.
4. First name used — Enter the patient's preferred first name or nickname, if any. This name appears in the patient banner (along with the legal first name); on the patient schedule; in athenaCommunicator messages (email, SMS, and phone); and on the Patient Portal.
   Note: The name in the First name used field can reflect the patient's gender identity. For more information about the patient banner for transgender and nonbinary people, see Transgender and Nonbinary Patient Care.
5. Middle name, suffix — Enter the patient's middle name and name suffix (for example, Jr.), if any.
6. Previous name (last, first) — Enter the patient's previous first and last names (if applicable): last name in the left-most field and first name in the right-most field.
7. Legal sex — Enter the patient's legal sex (male or female) on legal documents such as the insurance card or driver's license.
8. DOB — Enter the patient's date of birth.
9. SSN — Enter the patient's Social Security number.
   Note: You can enter SSNs when you first register a patient or when you add an SSN to an existing patient registration. To see the full 9 digits of already-entered SSNs, you must have the "Display Full SSN" role.
10. Mother's maiden name — Enter the maiden name of the patient's mother.
    Note: This information is used only as an additional means of determining identity, especially if information is received from non-athenahealth systems.
11. Preferred name (discontinued) — The Preferred name field has been replaced by the First name used field. For more information about moving existing information in this field, see the Field Reference.

Contact

12. Address — Enter the patient's address. For apartments, use this format: 1199 Whitney Ave #310.
    Note: You can click the Check address option (to the right of the ZIP code field) to validate the address that you entered (you must first enter the address and either the ZIP code or the city and state).
    
13. Address (ctd) — Enter additional address information, if needed.
14. ZIP code — Enter the patient's 5-digit ZIP code (the City and State fields are automatically filled in).
15. City — Enter the patient's city.
16. State — Enter the patient's state.
17. Country — If the Country field appears, select the patient's country.
    athenaOne automatically formats foreign mailing addresses according to the country's specifications for all claims, bills, statements, and other correspondence. 
    Note: If you select a country other than the United States, select the country from the menu, and then enter the two-letter postal abbreviation for the country in the State field.
18. ID Number Override — If your practice generates its own numeric patient IDs (rather than using athenaOne auto-generated patient IDs), enter the number. If you leave this blank, athenaOne automatically assigns the patient an ID number. This field appears only at the time of initial patient registration.
19. Home phone — Enter the patient's home phone number.
20. Mobile phone — Enter the patient's mobile phone number.
• If the mobile phone is the same as the patient's home phone, click the Copy from home link.
• If the patient does not have a mobile phone or declines to provide the number, select the None option.
21. Consent to call — The Consent to call field helps you comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. This field indicates whether you obtained "express consent" from the patient to receive automated calls from your practice to the patient's mobile phone. Automated calls include ReminderCall, GroupCall, ResultsCall, and Self-Pay calls.
22. Consent to text — This field indicates whether you obtained "express consent" from the patient to send automated text messages from your practice to the patient's mobile phone. Automated text messages are used by the ReminderCall, GroupCall, ResultsCall, and Self-Pay services. If the patient consents to receive text messages, athenaOne automatically enables the Text Message options in the Communicator Automated Messaging Preferences section of the Privacy Information page for that patient. Patients are charged standard message and data rates for text messages from your practice. Note: If a phone number is provided in the Mobile phone field, you must set the Consent to text option to Yes or No to save changes on the Check-in, Patient Registration, or Quickview page.
23. Work phone — Enter the patient's work phone number.
24. Patient email — Enter the patient's valid email address. This field is required on the Patient Registration and Check-in pages for practices using athenaCollector and athenaCommunicator.
    Selecting the No email option clears any email address or other notation present in the Patient email field.
    If the No email option is already selected, the patient has already informed another staff member at your practice that he or she does not have an email address or does not wish to provide one.
25. Portal access — This field displays the Patient Portal status of the patient and the patient's family members. You can invite a patient or family member to register for the Patient Portal (or the Patient Information Center), and you can view Patient Portal access for the patient and the patient's family members. For more information, see "Portal access section."
26. Contact preference — Select the contact method preferred by the patient.
    Note: The contact preference that you select on this page has no effect on the athenaCommunicator messaging preferences configured on the Privacy Information page.

Demographics

27. Language — Select the patient's preferred language from the menu. By default, a short list of the values that you most commonly select appears. To select a different value, enter the first few letters of the desired language and select it from the list.
    Note: If the patient does not provide a language, select the Patient Declined option.
28. Race — Select the patient's racial affiliation from the menu. By default, a short list of the values that you most commonly select appears. To select a different value, enter the first few letters of the desired language and select it from the list. To select more than one race, click the plus icon .
    Note: If the patient does not provide a race, select the Patient Declined option.
29. Ethnicity — Select the patient's ethnic affiliation. By default, a short list of the values that you most commonly select appears. To select a different value, enter the first few letters of the desired option and select it from the list. To select more than one ethnicity, click the plus icon .
    Note: If the patient does not provide an ethnicity, select the Patient Declined option.
30. Marital status — Select the patient's marital status from the menu.
31. Sexual orientation — Select the patient's sexual or romantic preference from the menu.
    Note: The options in the Sexual orientation field are based on 2015 edition certification requirements. If you see patients with additional sexual orientations, select the Something else, please describe option and enter the patient information in the free-text field.
32. Gender identity — Select the patient's internal sense of self as male, female, both male and female, or neither gender. A patient may identify as transgender or nonbinary if their gender identity is different than their assigned sex at birth.
    Note: The options in the Gender identity field are based on 2015 edition certification requirements. If you see patients with additional gender identities, select the Additional gender category / other, please specify option and enter the patient information in the free-text field.
33. Assigned sex at birth — Select the patient's assigned sex at birth. The patient's sex assigned at birth is generally determined by their physical anatomy at birth. This may be the same or different than the patient's gender identity and legal sex.
34. Pronouns — Select the personal pronouns that reflect the patient's gender identity (the pronouns may not be tied to the patient's gender identity).
35. Homebound? — Select Yes or No to indicate whether the patient is homebound.

Additional Information

36. How did you hear about us? — Select the route by which the patient heard about your practice.
    The contents of this menu are administered on the Referral Sources page.
37. Specify (if Other, above) — If you select Other in the How did you hear about us? field, you can enter a free-text source here.
38. Patient care summary and patient letter delivery preference — Select Portal or Paper to indicate whether the patient prefers to receive provider-signed letters and the Patient Care Summary on the Patient Portal or on paper.
    Note: In an ambulatory department that uses athenaClinicals but not athenaCommunicator, your patients can access their electronic Patient Care Summary online using the Patient Information Center, a slimmed-down version of the athenaCommunicator Patient Portal.

Provider/Registration Dates

39. Usual provider — Select the patient's primary provider.
    Note: By default, the name of the rendering provider is printed at the top of patient statements. If you prefer to print the name of the usual provider at the top of patient statements, please contact the CSC from athenaOne > Support > Success Community > Contact Client Support Center.
40. Registration department — Select the department in which the patient was initially registered.
41. Primary department — Select the patient's current active department, typically the department in which the patient chart is kept. The primary department may differ from the department of registration if the patient was transferred from one department to another.
42. Chart home — Select the department where the patient's chart is normally kept.
43. Registration date — Enter the date that the patient was registered in the athenaOne system. For new patients, the default value is the current date.
44. Deceased date — If the patient is deceased, enter the date of death. When a date is entered in this field, the field is displayed on the patient Quickview page with the date in red.

Privacy

45. Notices on file — Select the relevant options to indicate that the patient received the notices.
    Note: If you select the Privacy Notice option in the Notices on file field, athenaOne automatically sets the Medication History Authority field to Yes (if you have not yet selected Yes or No for this field).
    
46. CIIS Consent — Appears if your practice uses an immunization registry interface with athenaClinicals.
    Note: This field appears only after the initial patient registration information has been saved.
47. Medication History Authority — Select Yes to indicate that the patient has signed a consent form allowing your practice to download his or her medication history. You should first consult your practice's HIPAA compliance committee to verify that your current privacy consent forms cover medication history downloads.
    Note: If you select the Privacy Notice option in the Notices on file field, athenaOne automatically sets the Medication History Authority field to Yes (if you have not yet selected Yes or No for this field).
48. Patient notes — Enter any internal notes about the patient in this field. The notes you enter here also appear in the Patient notes field on the patient Quickview page and on the Check-in page. The notes are not printed on any form. If the patient has a guarantor other than self, athenahealth recommends that you enter the name and phone number of the guarantor in this field for your billing staff's convenience.

Emergency Contact

49. Name — Enter the name of the emergency contact for the patient. This is for reference only and is not used anywhere else.
50. Relationship — Enter the relationship of the contact to the patient.
51. Home phone — Enter the emergency contact's phone number.
52. Mobile phone — Enter the emergency contact's mobile phone number.

Next of Kin

53. Name — Enter the full name of the patient's next of kin.
54. Relationship — Select the next of kin's relationship to the patient.
55. Phone — Enter the next of kin's phone number.

Employment

56. Employer name — Click choose to access the tool and select the name of the patient's employer. If the patient's relationship to insured is SELF when adding an insurance policy, the Employer name field on the patient's Add Update Policy Details page defaults to the value in this field.
57. Employer phone — Enter the phone number of the patient's employer. This field is for reference only.
58. Usual occupation — Enter the first few characters of the patient's current or most recent occupation and select it from the matching list. If the occupation is not found, enter it as free text.
59. Usual industry — Enter the first few characters of the patient's occupational industry and select it from the matching list. If the industry is not found, enter it as free text.

Guardian

60. Last name — If the patient is under the care of a guardian who is not the same person as the guarantor (for example, in the case of separated parents), enter the last name of the patient's legal guardian. This is for reference only and is not used anywhere else in the system.
61. First name — First name of the patient's legal guardian.
62. Middle name, suffix — Middle name and name suffix of the patient's legal guardian.

Guarantor Information (now read-only on Patient Registration)

The guarantor is the person who appears as the addressee on patient statements. If Patient's relationship to guarantor is set to Self, the patient's address is used as the address for patient statements.

A best practice for family billing is to designate one (and only one) family member as the guarantor for the entire family. Once selected, this guarantor receives patient statements for "patient's responsibility" balances incurred by any family member.

 

You can manage Guarantor Information on Quickview and Check-in. For more information, see Review and Update Guarantor on Check-in or Quickview.

Billing

63. Statements delivered online only — Select this option if the patient wants to have statements delivered online only via the Patient Portal. This option appears if your practice has the Allow Online Statements feature enabled and the patient uses the athenaCommunicator Patient Portal.
64. Statement note — Enter a note that will be printed on statements for this patient (75 characters max). The note appears on the patient statement above the dunning message.
65. Statement note effective date — By default, the effective date for the statement note you enter is from today's date until one year later, but you can edit these dates.
66. You can save the information as follows:
    • Click Save to save the information and go to the patient Quickview page without adding an insurance policy.
    • Click Save and Add Insurance to proceed to the Add Policy page. To check in a patient for an appointment, you must select a primary insurance policy for the patient or select the self-pay option.
    • Click Save and Schedule to proceed to the Schedule Appointment page.

    Note: If yours is an athenaEnterprise organization and the Practice Setting for CPI Synchronization is enabled, the selected set of fields, when updated, will propagate through the athenaEnterprise. See also: Common Patient Index.