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Manage admissions

An admission records a period of care for a patient at the facility that owns the patient record. Use it to organize the patient's therapy cases and billing episodes, and to manage admission details such as admit and discharge dates, room number, physicians, tags, and notes.

Before you start​

Create the patient under the correct facility and add any needed coverages first.

Understand admissions​

An admission provides the shared context for clinical care and billing during one period at the facility. It can continue through several courses of therapy and changes in payor.

  • The admission records the patient's overall period of care at the facility.
  • A therapy case records one discipline's course of care, such as physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), or speech-language pathology (SLP). It contains the clinical documentation for that course of therapy.
  • A billing episode identifies the primary payor, billing provider when applicable, dates, and services to which the billing setup applies. Services are selected by discipline or by specific therapy case.

Both therapy cases and billing episodes belong to the admission. One admission can have several of each. RehabAlpha matches a case's services to a billing episode using the episode's dates and selected disciplines or cases.

A therapy case cannot start before the admission date in the facility's time zone. A billing episode cannot start before the admission date and time. When editing an admission, keep its start on or before every case start and at or before every billing episode start.

How the dates fit together​

The admission, billing episodes, and therapy cases have separate dates. In this fictional example, one admission continues from January through June. Both billing episodes select PT and OT, and the primary payor changes from Example Payor A to Example Payor B on April 1.

The PT case continues across the payor change; changing the payor does not require a new therapy case or admission. OT ends one course of therapy and starts another later in the same admission. Ending a course of therapy does not mean the patient has left the facility.

A therapy case can also exist before a billing episode is set up. Add the billing episode when you need RehabAlpha to match services to a primary payor and payment model. For more examples, including billing episodes that apply to different disciplines at the same time, use the billing episode guide.

Add an admission​

  1. Open the patient.
  2. Click Admissions.
  3. Click New admission.
  4. Enter the Admit date. Add Admit time when known, or leave it blank.
  5. Add room number, physicians, prior hospitalization, or PDPM assessment details when available.
  6. Set up a billing episode if your organization tracks billing setup in RehabAlpha.
  7. Click Save.

RehabAlpha derives the facility, time zone, available service locations, and billing defaults from the patient's facility. The admission form does not let you select or change the facility or time zone.

Admit time is optional. If you leave it blank, RehabAlpha uses midnight (00:00) on the admit date for calculations, in the time zone shown in the field's help popover. The time stays blank when you reopen the admission, and admission summaries show only the admit date.

For a readmission on the same day as an earlier discharge, enter an admit time at or after the discharge time. Leaving the time blank assumes midnight and can overlap the earlier admission.

Update an admission​

  1. Open the patient.
  2. Click Admissions.
  3. Open the admission.
  4. Click Edit.
  5. Update admission details, physicians, PDPM assessments, billing episodes, tags, or notes. The facility remains unchanged.
  6. Click Save.

The admission keeps the facility time zone saved when it was created, even if the facility's time zone later changes. Admit, discharge, and custom billing-episode dates and times use that saved zone. Clearing Admit time restores the midnight assumption.

End an admission​

Use the admission's Discharge date when the patient is no longer admitted at the facility.

  1. Open the admission.
  2. Click Edit.
  3. Enter the Discharge date.
  4. Review any billing episodes tied to the admission.
  5. Click Save.

Discharging an admission doesn't close its therapy cases. Write a discharge or set an end date on each case when its course of therapy ends.

PointClickCare integration​

Owners, Admins, and facility managers can select Facility → Details → Integration → Refresh to retrieve eligible patients' PointClickCare stays. The facility integration and PointClickCare access must be active, with a primary PointClickCare source selected. A refresh can create or link admissions and update admit dates, admit times, and discharge dates on linked admissions. While a PointClickCare stay is open, the refresh also replaces the current admission's Room number with the patient's PointClickCare room and bed. Review See details for skipped admissions or date conflicts that need attention.

The facility link's Combine returning inpatient stays setting groups eligible inpatient stays that are not already linked to RehabAlpha admissions. Existing linked groupings remain unchanged. The manual Combine with next action remains unavailable. You can still create and edit admissions manually.

Review an admission's PointClickCare history​

Owners, Admins, and facility managers see a PointClickCare admission history section on each admission:

  • Linked PointClickCare stays lists the PointClickCare stays saved for this admission, with their dates, inpatient or outpatient setting, and opening ADT record. A stay marked Turned off no longer updates the admission.
  • ADT records shows the PointClickCare admission, leave, return, transfer, and discharge records for those stays from the patient's most recent sync.

This section shows only the most recent sync. If that sync could not rebuild the patient's PointClickCare stays, the section says so and keeps showing the saved stay links. To review the patient's full PointClickCare history, including records that are not part of any stay, open Patient → Details → Integration and select View ADT history.

What to do next​

After an admission exists, start a therapy case for each discipline providing care.