Home Forums Discussions Problems Is there any way to change the encounter date?

Were new to AC and we realized that some some charts have the wrong encounter date. How do we edit or change the encounter date?
If we cannot edit it now, can you recommend a workaround solution?

Before the note is signed, you can change the date by hitting "alter date" to the right of where the date of the visit appears.

After the note is signed, the date cannot be changed. One workaround is to create an addendum which states that the date on the note is an error and providing the correct date. You will probably want to choose the option to "append" it to the encounter.

Thanks for your help. Looks like we need to be more careful before signing charts.

I am trying to prep an encounter / chart note, a day ahead....so it's ready to go for the provider. But when I alter the date and put in tomorrow's date, it still puts it as the date when I created the encounter... I would like to be able to prep ahead for my provider without my provider having the hassle of having to change all the dates.

Any ideas?

Stephanie

Dear Stephanie:

Welcome to the ACUB and to AC.

What do you mean by "prep" a chart note?? I can't imagine why you would want to open an encounter the day before. You can update demographics anytime without opening an encounter.

In our office when the patient comes in for their appointment, my secretary opens demographics and updates any info. My medical assistant opens a new encounter and enters the cc and vital signs. She then saves it to the message board. I do the rest.

It takes a while for everyone to work out a streamlined and staightforward process for using AC within your particular environment. The transition from paper to computer will take everyone time. After you get the wrinkles worked out you will be able to document better and more efficiently with AC.

John

Hi Stephanie
My office also "prep" the charts a day or two before the appointment if needed. My nurse fills in the info like Past History, Social Hx, Medications List etc and then "Forward the Chart" to herself. On the day of Encounter, she opens the chart, changes the encounter date to TODAY's Date (the date of encounter), records Vitals, reconfirms the medication list and then "Forward the Chart" to me for the rest. I also have checked the alerts in my Preferences so when I Sign encounter, it alerts me if Date of Encounter and TODAY's date are different, so I can take corrective actions.
Preparing charts ahead of time saves time on the day of encounter, specially for new patients, as we ask patients to fill in health survey ahead of the scheduled appointment day. This survey is the basis for preparing charts before the scheduled appointment date.
Hope this will help.

Stephanie,

You are out of luck. Any time a chart is pulled and sent to a doctor's inbox, the time and date will be the time and date you sent it. No matter what you do, even though it says 2/1/2013 on the top left, as soon as you send it, right back. I will give you the workaround later in this post.

Now a PCP can change the date to a future date and save it, but I don't know why.

The whole idea is that MAs open the chart on the 29th and the providers chart on them. But, if they don't finish the chart until two weeks later, it will always give an error. The doctor can change the date backwards or forwards, or he/she can choose Yes, and it will default back to the date and time the patient was seen.

Now, in your case that would not be the case and, unless the doctor took the time to change the date and time (which would actually be more accurate on that day but much less so at a future date).

Here is what you do. I am assuming you are using Microsoft and not Linux or Apple. When you sit down to prep your charts, click on the time on the bottom right. Select Change Date and Time Settings. In the pulldown menu, change the date one day ahead. Now all your charts will be in the doctor's inbox as if you did it the following day. After, be sure to go back and change the date back to the correct date.

I won't go into it, but there are all sorts of benefits to changing the date of your computer.

Hope this helps. Now what drives me absolutely batty is when you pull a patient's chart that was saved two months ago to look at something. The date will default to today's date at the top left making the note appear to have been done today. Since dates stay the same in other parts of the chart such as in past encounters, the date the chart was signed should be permanently etched in that position.