athenaOne Fall 2024 Release

As the healthcare landscape evolves, the need for secure, streamlined, efficient, and user-friendly technology grows. athenahealth, known for its commitment to developing cutting-edge healthcare technology, is excited to share details of its upcoming Fall Product Release. This release introduces new tools and enhancements designed to improve the experience of providers, patients, and healthcare administrators alike. It will be generally available the week of November 11th.  

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the key features that Ignite believes will make the biggest impact on workflows. 

Clinical: 

In this Fall Release, athenahealth's Clinical Product Team has placed a large emphasis on Behavioral Health by rolling out Group Scheduling and a Behavioral Health Tailored Encounter Layout. Group session scheduling has been a top customer request for some time now and Ignite is so excited to see it be available with the Fall Release. Group session templates will allow Behavioral Health specialists to schedule multiple patients for the same shared appointment. This feature will cut back on hours of administrative time putting removing scheduling work arounds that previously burdened practices who offered group therapy.  

The Behavioral Health Tailored Encounter Layout will promote a more efficient documentation workflow for licensed clinical social workers, licensed clinical professional counselors, mental health counselors, family therapists, child life professionals, marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, and substance use disorder treatment providers. With the addition of sections that are conducive to recording behavioral health information, such as Subjective, Objective, Progress Note and Treatment Plan, providers can capture information that is of greater relevance to their specialty, leading to improved clinical insights.  

athenaOne Mobile, will now be available on Android devices with the Fall 2024 Release. The athenaOne Mobile on Androids feature will take a few more iterations before the Android experience reaches full parity with iOS but it is a step in the right direction for enabling all mobile users across platforms.   

The new Snooze Patient Cases feature allows users to more effectively manage their clinical inbox tasks. By snoozing a patient case you can remove the task from the clinical inbox for one day, one week, two weeks or a custom date. When the snooze expires, the case reappears in the same worklist with the original status. 

The additional enhancements in the Fall 2024 Release to Confidential History of Present Illness (HPI), Review of Systems (ROS) and Physical Exam (PE) Notes, further shows athenahealth’s ongoing commitment to support a provider’s need to keep certain elements of a visit private. During the Exam stage of the encounter, users can lock the HPI, ROS, and PE sections of the patient chart and state the reason for locking. Once set as confidential they won’t be visible to patients or others who have access to health information in Patient Care Summaries, CCDAs, Medical Care Record documents published to the Patient Portal, and Personal Health Record apps using FHIR R4 endpoints. Locking a portion of the note does not impact how it appears to other providers in your organization. 

Revenue Cycle & Practice Management:

The ability to Set Units and Modifiers on Order Type and Procedure Template Mapping Page is a major improvement in charge integration. The addition of units to this page will streamline medication and injection billing and the capability to map non-fee affecting modifiers will allow for an improvement of capturing modifiers that are necessary for reporting and payer regulations. 

athenahealth is making noteworthy investments in bettering FQHC reporting and claim management capabilities in the Fall 2024 Release. FQHC Reporting updates will include a new Activity Wizard that captures updated claim and charge data automatically and a new A/R Aging Wizard that surfaces a summary of outstanding claim amounts and the age of receivables. Claim View Updates will provide practices with the ability to toggle a read-only view of claim receivable data on the Visit and Claim Update pages.   

With the Fall 2024 Release, users will now be able to Review and Update Guarantor on Check-in or Quickview. Previously, the Guarantor could only be updated on the Full Registration page and users were forced to navigate away from check-in workflows whenever a Guarantor update was required. Adding the Guarantor to the Quickview and Check-in page within the Contacts Section will expedite workflows for practice staff.  

The Customized Patient Banner allows athenaOne customers to decide what data they want to appear across the top of the Quickview and Chart. Category Cards allow a new layer of convenience to access information without having to navigate away from their workflows.  

Patient Engagement 

athenahealth continues to make advancements in their Enhanced Self Check-in Experience. The Fall Release will include improvements to Digital Forms with the introduction of Dynamic Variables. Dynamic Variables are connected to a corresponding value in athenaOne. They are very similar to Magic Words that were typically incorporated into Clinical Paper Forms. For example, Dynamic Variables can be utilized to capture the department address, medical group name or date of service. When the form is rendered to patients, all Dynamic Variables are replaced with the corresponding value for that appointment. 

The Enhanced Self Check-in Experience will also now include Family History, Gynecological History, Allergy History, and Past Medical History sections for patients to complete prior to visits. This will streamline intake processes and allow patients to have more control in their health records.  

These are just a few of the Fall Release highlights. The release is packed with many more tools that will save time, reduce administrative burdens and deliver better patient care. With this Fall Release, athenahealth reaffirms its dedication to empowering healthcare providers with secure, efficient and effective technology. Whether you’re a physician, a practice manager, or a healthcare IT specialist, the latest tools and features promise an elevated experience for all users. 

Looking for more tips on how to prep for your org for athena Releases? Check out Ignite’s athenaOne Readiness Blog.