jwagman wrote on Saturday, October 06, 2012:
Is there any concept of signing off on records, charts, x-rays, etc. to make a legal document in OpenEMR? If so, how is this accomplished?
Thanks, James
tmccormi wrote on Wednesday, October 10, 2012:
There is no ‘signing off’ there is authorization, but it does not lock records. They are legal documents none-the-less.
I have customizations that add esignature to forms. So do other vendors, but no clear consensus on how this should work in the overall project has been arrived at, yet.
-Tony
namgaw718 wrote on Wednesday, October 10, 2012:
How can I find the authorization? Thanks.
tmccormi wrote on Wednesday, October 10, 2012:
Menu: Miscellaneous->Authorizations
jwagman wrote on Wednesday, October 10, 2012:
Thank you!!
jwagman wrote on Wednesday, October 10, 2012:
After authorizing, where can I subsequently see the authorization?
tmccormi wrote on Thursday, October 11, 2012:
The system tracks that internally, essentially if it’s not on the authorization page, it’s been authorized. You can, for audit reason look at the logs for Event type ‘authorize’…
However there is a bug here, I just found. The Patient ID column is empty and the PID itself is in the Comment column. I presume the the developer meant to put the PID in the PID column and the ENCOUNTER ID in the Comment column. This could be significantly better with the some actual encounter information in the log.
Better would be to add Auth Y/N and by whom into the encounter report itself.
-Tony
www.mi.squared.com
jwagman wrote on Thursday, October 11, 2012:
Hi Tony,
My question is what triggers something to show up in the authorization form? Is there a specific form which, after it’s been filled out, triggers an authorization line to show up on the form?
Thanks.
tmccormi wrote on Thursday, October 11, 2012:
An encounter shows up as needing to be authorized if the USER that entered it has a their Authorized setting = “none”. Then someone whose setting is “all” will see them.
-Tony
jwagman wrote on Thursday, October 11, 2012:
How do you check a user (I assume physician,pa,etc. as user, correct?) has authorized setting = ‘none’?
Thanks so much.
tmccormi wrote on Thursday, October 11, 2012:
It’s a selection in the user setup, Administration->Users
-Tony
jwagman wrote on Friday, October 12, 2012:
I do see a setting in users whether to see Authorizations or not. However, even those I set up to see no Authorizations come up as Authorized on the User list. What am I missing? TIA.
tmccormi wrote on Friday, October 12, 2012:
That’s just another case of bad/confusing wording. In this case “Authorized” means you checked the “Provider” check box.
The ability to authorize encounters had nothing to do with that, it only has to do with the “See Authorizations” which is also poorly worded and should say “See and Perform Authorizations of Encounter and Patient Notes if applicable”, which is a bit long, I’d say 
-Tony
jwagman wrote on Monday, October 15, 2012:
What I’m trying to do here is at least have something in place which shows that the clinician looked at and approved the medical record. I’'ve tried to follow your directions, but I’m still confused in places. Can you explain again, perhaps giving an example, how an authorization shows up for the clinician to act on? Also, what does this authorization cover? A note? The complete record? Vitals? Thanks for your patience!!