Merge/Delete Patient

Before you can delete a patient record, you must void all outstanding charges and payments; delete or close any associated encounters and documents; and cancel all pending appointments and remove them from the No Show worklist.

Important: Use extreme caution. The delete is permanent: there is no "undelete" option.

1. Display the Quickview page for the patient record that you want to delete.
2. On the Quickview, click the Delete/Merge Patient button (at the bottom of the page).
   The Merge/Delete Patient page appears.
   Note: If the patient has outstanding charges or payments, open encounters or documents, or any pending appointments, you cannot delete the record.
3. Review the text displayed about this patient to verify that the current record is the one that you want to delete.
4. Click Delete Patient.

Note: For athenaEnterprise clients, deleting a patient deletes the record from the local provider group only.

If the patient record belongs to a family billing group

With Family Billing, the merge function provides you with a warning and instructions when the patient whose records you want to merge belongs to a family. Merges of patient records that are part of a family billing group present some risk because athenaOne does not know exactly how to transition family members through this merge. Therefore, athenahealth recommends that you do the following:

• Note the family record numbers displayed in the warning.
• When the merge is complete, check the merged patient record to ensure that all appropriate family members are linked to that record.
• From the merged patient record, you can add any family members that may have been dropped during the merge.

Important: Use extreme caution. The merge is permanent: there is no "unmerge" option.

1. Display the Quickview page for the patient record that you want to merge into another patient record.
2. On the Quickview, click the Delete/Merge Patient button (at the bottom of the page).
   The Merge/Delete Patient page appears. If more than one possible match exists, athenaOne orders the possible matches by how closely they match the original patient record. A message appears next to each possible match, indicating whether that patient is a likely match or only a possible match.
3. Patient ID — Enter the patient ID that you want to keep after the merge is complete.
   Caution: If you selected a possible match from the list above the Patient ID field, that patient ID appears automatically in this field. Make certain that the patient ID in this field is the one that you want to have after the merge.
4. Click Continue.
   The Merge/Delete Patient page displays information to help you compare the two patient records.
   Note: A warning message appears if you try to merge a patient record with another record that is not a likely duplicate.
5. Carefully review the comparison of demographic and clinical information to determine whether to merge the patient records.
• Red boxes indicate a mismatch.
• Black boxes indicate a match.
6. You can click the linked patient ID number at the top of the Patient to Merge section on the right to display the patient Quickview for a closer look at the patient information that will be deleted or merged.
7. If your practice uses athenaClinicals, some health history information may also appear. If health history information differs in the two patient records, athenaOne displays the differences.
   Note: If you merge the two records, athenaOne retains all the health history information listed under the target patient (Patient to Keep section) and deletes the information in the Patient to Merge section.
8. Review all information to determine whether to proceed with the merge.
9. Click Merge to permanently merge the patient records.
   A warning message asks whether you want to merge the patient records.
10. Click OK to continue, or click Cancel to return to the patient comparison on the Merge/Delete Patient page.
    Note: All appointments, claims, charges, payments, and ticklers from both records are included in the single, merged patient record.

To avoid errors when you merge patient records, follow these best practices:

Before you display the Merge/Delete Patient page:

• Make sure that the records you plan to merge are for the same patient.
• Open both patient records to determine how the information differs and whether you want to manually transfer any data to the patient record that you plan to keep.
• Transfer any missing patient demographics manually (for example, last name, first name, date of birth, and SSN).
• Review the information in free-text fields and transfer any information that you want to keep (the contents of free-text fields are not flagged by the merge process).

After you display the Merge/Delete Patient page, carefully review the data that will be discarded (shown in red boxes) before you proceed with the merge.

To report on information about patient records that have been merged or deleted, you can run the Merged and Deleted Patients report. This report is on the Patients tab of the Report Library.

Note: To use this report, you must have access to the Report Library.

The Merged and Deleted Patients report displays information about both the merged patient record and the deleted record. This information includes patient ID, name, DOB, and SSN. The report also displays the username of the person who merged or deleted the record and the date that the merge or deletion was completed.