User Guide — Assign Encounters to Practice Roles

athenaClinicals

With athenaClinicals, you can set up non-person providers and assign practice roles instead of usernames. When you schedule an appointment with a non-person provider, the encounter is assigned to the practice role upon check-in. All users associated with the practice role will then see an alert flag in their Clinical Inbox. This is especially useful when scheduling tests and equipment, such as an echocardiogram, or scheduling an appointment for a pool of users, as in urgent care.

 

Covered entities, including athenahealth and its clients, should never assign the same login ID or user ID to multiple employees. Under the HIPAA Security Rule, covered entities, regardless of their size, are required to assign a unique name and/or number for identifying and tracking user identity.

 

A "user" is defined as a "person or entity with authorized access." Accordingly, the Security Rule requires covered entities to assign a unique name and/or number to each employee or workforce member who uses a system that maintains electronic protected health information (ePHI), so that system access and activity can be identified and tracked. This rule pertains to workforce members within small or large healthcare provider offices, health plans, group health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses.

 

As required under Section 45 CFR 164.312(a)(2)(i) of HIPAA, all actions performed in athenaOne must be traceable to a specific individual. This helps us, and our practices, maintain the security and integrity of our systems.

 

Note: A non-person provider is an entity configured using the Providers page that refers to a scheduling resource (such as "Echocardiogram") or generic provider (such as "Nurse"). With athenaClinicals, if your practice has the "Assign Encounters to Practice Roles" feature enabled, you can associate a non-person provider with a practice role instead of with a username.

See also: Assign Encounters to Practice Role.

 

 

 

There are several tasks needed to configure a non-person provider.

 

Use the Practice Roles page to create a practice role to use for the non-person entity, and assign users who will monitor the Clinical Inbox row for this non-person provider.

 

Use the Providers page to create (or update) the non-person provider, and select the practice role you created for this non-person provider.

 

With this feature, we recommend that practice administrators update their Clinical Inbox view to include all users so that unconfigured users appear.

 

To learn more about unconfigured users, see User Guide — Clinical Inbox Tasks Assigned to Unconfigured User.

 

 

 

 

If your practice has the Assign Encounters to Practice Roles setting set to "Person rendering provider required to create encounter":

  1. If the appointment is scheduled with the non-person provider (for example, "echo"), then by default, during the Check-in stage, athenaOne sets both the scheduling provider and rendering provider to the non-person provider for example, "echo").
  2. You must update the rendering provider to a person provider (for example, "jsmith") to create the encounter. The rendering provider is the provider who will eventually do the interpretation of the test or sign the encounter.
  3. The provider "echo" becomes the scheduling provider, and "jsmith" becomes the rendering provider. The encounter appears in the Encounters column of "echorole's" Clinical Inbox so that the technician (for example, "bjones"), who is seeing "echo's" patients, will know that the patient is available. If "bjones" has been set up as one of the users associated with practice role "echorole," then "bjones" will also receive a flag alert when the patient has been checked in.
  4. Depending on your workflow and preferences, the technician "bjones" can use the Encounter Sign-Off section to assign the encounter to the rendering provider ("jsmith") at any point that the section is available.
  5. If no one has assigned the encounter to the rendering provider, then when you complete the encounter stage (usually Exam) before the Sign-Off stage, the encounter appears in the rendering provider's ("jsmith's") Clinical Inbox.

 

 

If your practice has the Assign Encounters to Practice Roles setting set to "Person rendering provider not required to create encounter"):

  1. You can schedule appointments with a non-person provider assigned to a practice role; for example, the role UrgentCare. When you do, upon Check-in, athenaOne sets the encounter's scheduling and rendering provider to the non-person scheduling provider.
  2. The encounter is assigned to the UrgentCare row under the Encounters column in the Clinical Inbox. Clinical staff assigned to the UrgentCare role will see an alert flag in the Clinical Inbox when the patient has been checked in.
  3. Authorized clinical staff assigned to the UrgentCare role can use the Encounter Sign-Off section (on the Summary tab in the Sign-Off stage) to assign the encounter to the appropriate (person) rendering provider, and change the encounter assignment.
  4. Until you set a rendering provider to a person provider, you cannot close the encounter.
  5. If you add orders before you set a person rendering provider, the ordering provider on those orders will be blank and the orders cannot be approved. When you update the rendering provider to be a person, athenaOne will update the orders accordingly, so that they can then be approved.
  6. If the appointment has the rendering provider set to a person and the encounter has not yet been assigned to the rendering provider's Clinical Inbox, then when you complete the encounter stage (usually Exam) before the Sign-Off stage, the encounter appears in the rendering provider's ("jsmith's") Clinical Inbox.

 

 

 

  1. Display the Practice Roles page: On the Main Menu, click Settings > Clinicals. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Other, click Practice Roles.
  2. Name — Enter a name for the practice role (for example, "xray" or "nursevisits"). Names must be in lowercase letters with no spaces or punctuation.
  3. Users — Select the users to assign to this practice role.
  4. Department — Click All to use this role in all departments, or click Selected and then select the departments that will use the role.
    Note: This option appears only if the Department Login Permissions feature is enabled for your practice.
  5. Click Save.

Note: New practice roles that you create require an overnight refresh to take effect. After that point, users can select the new practice role from the Assignee menu when creating a task assignment override.

 

 

These steps require that your practice have the Assign Encounters to Practice Roles feature enabled. The non-person provider should not have an athenaOne username.

  1. Display the Providers page: On the Main Menu, click Settings > Billing. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Providers, click Providers.
  2. Click Add provider. Additional fields appear.
  3. Entity Type — Select Non-person for a resource or facility.

Basic Information

  1. Name 1 — Enter a unique descriptive name for the resource (for example, X-ray machine 1).
  2. Medical group — Select the provider's medical group.
  3. Sex — Leave this field blank.
  4. Provider group — Select the provider's provider group. 
    Note: This field is required if your practice is an athenaEnterprise organization.
  5. Social Security number — Leave this field blank.

Billing

  1. Billed name — Enter a name that matches the Name 1 field.
    Note: Because the billed name that appears on claims is always the name of a supervising provider, the billed name of a non-person entity will never appear on a claim. Do not enter the name of another provider.
  2. Credentials — Leave the box unchecked.
  3. Provider type — Select the provider type. This selection determines whether the provider requires a different supervising provider for billing and other purposes.
  4. Provider taxonomy — Click choose to display the Taxonomy Lookup tool and select the most specific provider taxonomy that applies.
  5. Specialty — Select the provider's specialty.
  6. Signature — Do not select this option for a non-person provider (leave the box unchecked).
  7. Default supervising provider — Leave this field blank.
  8. Missing Slips Worklist — Select this option if services for this provider should be tracked on the Missing Slips worklist in the Workflow Dashboard.
  9. NDC TAT — Leave this field blank.

Workflow

  1. Scheduling name — Enter the scheduling name for this resource. This name appears in menus and on appointment and scheduling pages to identify the provider. The scheduling name is case sensitive and cannot contain spaces.
    Note: After you save a scheduling name for a provider, you cannot edit it in athenaOne. If you need to change the scheduling name, please contact the CSC by selecting Support > Create Case or Call in the Main Menu.
  2. Scheduling resource type — Select the provider's scheduling resource type, if applicable. A scheduling resource type represents a set of providers who, for scheduling purposes, are interchangeable. Scheduling resource type are used for multi-resource scheduling.
  3. Scheduling note — Enter any notes that should appear on the Schedule Appointment page for this provider.
  4. Encounters — This option appears only if the practice-level setting Assign Encounters to Practice Roles is set to Person rendering provider not required to create encounter. If you select the Automatically create encounters at check-in option, an encounter is created automatically at check-in. You must specify a value in the Practice role field.
  5. Referrals — Select this option if this provider is an athenaCoordinator referring provider.
  6. Practice role — Enter the practice role assigned to the users who monitor the non-person provider's user row in the Clinical Inbox). You must enter a value if you selected the Automatically create encounters at check-in option in the Encounters field.
    Note: Practice roles are defined on the Practice Roles page.
  7. Reporting name — Leave this field blank.
  8. Ordering — Enter a number to indicate the order for this provider in menus. Providers are ordered by Ordering, then by Practice role.

Patient Communication

  1. Patient Portal — Select the Display this provider in the Patient Portal option if you want the provider's name to appear on Patient Portal menus. If you do not select this option, patients cannot send messages or request appointments for this provider.
    Note: This field appears only if you have the athenaCommunicator functionality.
  2. Display name — Enter the name for the provider as it will appear in email messages to patients (Subject line, body, and signature of the email). This name is also used in the greeting of automated calls and on the Patient Portal, as well as on the billing statements sent to patients.
    Note: For billing statements, the name you enter in this field overrides the value entered in the Billed name field.
    • You can select the Same as billed name option to use the provider name specified in the Billed name field.
    • If you prefer not to display the provider's name, you can enter "Your Provider" in this field.
  3. SMS display name — Enter the shortened name for the provider as it will appear in automated text messages to patients (20-character maximum).
    • You can select the Same as display name option to use the provider name specified in the Display name field.
    • If you prefer not to display the provider's name, you can enter "Your Provider" in this field.
  4. Primary department — Select the provider's home department as it should appear on the Patient Portal.
    Note: This field appears only if you have the athenaCommunicator functionality.
  5. Click Save, or click Save and Update Credentialing to display the Provider Credentialing page.