Expedited Encounters

EMR Tips & Tricks Athena
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Guessing there has to be other athenahealth users out here :grinning:

In case it is helpful, we have had great success using the new Expedited Encounter functionality where the clinician can create an encounter from a patient’s chart without having to schedule an appointment. This has been particularly helpful after hours to turn a phone call into a telemedicine visit.

Also, we saw a preview of the embedded telemedicine platform that is in alpha testing- looks exciting.

Anyone using Facetime from the mobile app? Would love to hear how that is going? We just picked up an ipad to play around with because the clinicians don’t like using the app from their phones.

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Thanks for posting this - never knew about it. We have turned it on now. Should save the MDs some time at night.

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how and where do you turn this feature on?

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You will need to open a support case with the CSC for them to turn on the feature - create case with details first and then call. Then each provider needs to have it added by superuser as role on their user profile More details here https://success.athenahealth.com/s/article/000091344 You can also search o-help for Expedited Encounters and Deferred Insurance

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Thanks! Is it an additional charge?

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@Pholmes No additional charge :grinning:

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We are happy Athena users! Can’t wait for them to catch up and offer us telemedicine integrated. We are glad for your helpful tips and will use them! We decided to go to Hale as the pandemic hit and are happy with the partial integration but find documenting and reliable service to be iffy. (I’m sure they are scrambling to improve too) I have just started using facetime as it is simpler and with your expedited encounter tip will be glad to just turn my phone calls into visits as soon as parents agree!

I also appreciated the tip about the user groups on athena- my new part time job is listening to zoom calls, podcasts and collecting information about how to do better, collaborate and stay around for our patients!!
We are a small practice in Philadelphia- Pediatrician owner (me) and two pediatric NP’s. I am looking for a pediatric partner in my independent practice adventure in the near future!

Thanks again!

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@docmarcie Good news! Athena is piloting an integrated telemedicine feature right now- our providers have been trying it out and I am hearing from them that they like it so far- will keep you posted!

We too have been running into connectivity issues- I can’t even imagine how much traffic the internet is getting these days.

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