'Late Entry' calendar appointments don't make encounters

harleytuck wrote on Thursday, April 14, 2016:

I’ve been checking out a report that on OpenEMR 4.1.2+ and 4.2, when you go into the past on the calendar and create an appointment then mark the appointment ‘@ arrived’ , it doesn’t create an encounter, even if the global calendar config says to.

  1. has anybody else observed that?
  2. Seems to me that compared to to a paper chart this is the functional equivalent of adding a back-dated page in the progress notes. Which in my experience was always legal as long as you made a notation that it was a “LATE ENTRY” and lined out any other usable space on the page.
  3. Do any wannabe dev contributors lurking out there think it would be worth it to fix the bug that prevents the encounter from being automatically created, then make some sort of non-deletable “LATE ENTRY” notification in the encounter’s summary?
    Just thinking- HT

teryhill wrote on Thursday, April 14, 2016:

If you have patient tracker on the system you can tell the system which appointment statuses are “Check In” and an encounter will be generated.

teryhill wrote on Thursday, April 14, 2016:

Also if you goto \interface\main\calendar\add_edit_event.php find this

 // Auto-create a new encounter if appropriate.
 //
 if ($GLOBALS['auto_create_new_encounters'] && $_POST['form_apptstatus'] == '@' && $event_date == date('Y-m-d'))
 
 
 And change it to this
 
 	 // Auto-create a new encounter if appropriate.
 //
 if ($GLOBALS['auto_create_new_encounters'] && $_POST['form_apptstatus'] == '~' && $_POST['form_apptstatus'] == '@' && $event_date == date('Y-m-d'))
 
 That should autogen the encounter.
 
 Terry

teryhill wrote on Thursday, April 14, 2016:

Sorry Harley I misread your post. My syggestion will only create an encounter for the “Arrived Late” entry.

Terry

harleytuck wrote on Thursday, April 14, 2016:

'At’s ok, Terry- it just shows how much you wannabe a dev contributor (SNERK! SNERK! SNERK!)
But I’m sure your code will come in handy.
Roasted chia seed crackers and organic miso!

  • HT

mdsupport wrote on Friday, April 15, 2016:

It seems like this is someone’s business rule since the lines Terry identified has specific check for the date:

... && $event_date == date('Y-m-d')

Our users have not complained about it since the office policy is to make sure only front office ‘checks in’ patients to create encounters. Off-hand there does not seem to be any need for that check but a better approach will be to ask user for ‘late arrival’ or ‘historical entries’ if it is ok to create an encounter.