Tutorial ID | T-17 |
Section | Preparing a Case/Reviewing the case |
Title | Adding and Managing Episode Types |
Subtitle | Apply a consistent set of episode types so your chronology filters and reads clearly. |
Before You Begin
You have a case with episodes that need to be grouped and categorized.
Episode - records that belong to one event and are grouped together — an emergency visit, a physical therapy visit, a surgery, deposition.
An episode is defined by the event, not by the page or staple boundaries. A single page can contain several episodes, and a single staple can contain several episodes. At the same time, several pages — or a whole staple — may all belong to only one episode.
Episodes are what make an event visible in the Timeline or Calendar. Without them, there's no way to place a specific event in the Timeline or Calendar. Because of this, every page in the Workspace must be attributed to an episode.
What You Will Accomplish
By the end of this tutorial, every episode in your case will carry an episode type that's accurate and applied consistently. You will know how to fix episodes that were mistyped or classified inconsistently.
Why Does this Tutorial Matter
An episode groups the records that belong together — an emergency visit, a surgery, a primary care physician visit. Episode types are the skeleton of the case. Get the types right, and you can filter any event by its type, and find any event exactly where you would expect it.
What to Do if Something Goes Wrong
The list below covers the most common problems with episode types. Each entry follows the same pattern: what you'll notice, why it likely happened, and how to fix it.
Tip Episode types should be agreed on before classifying begins. When a shared standard is used across cases, the same categories apply everywhere, so you do not have to relearn a new type system each time moving between a case. |
Problem: The wrong type of an episode is chosen.
Likely cause: A wrongly typed episode groups its events under the wrong heading, so anything filtered or summarized by type inherits the error.
Example: An emergency room visit that included an emergency surgical procedure is typed as "Emergency Care."
Filtering the chronology by "Surgery" to review every surgical episode in the case misses this one entirely.
Fix:
Check that each episode carries the type that genuinely describes it.
When a filtered view looks wrong, trace it back to a mistyped episode and correct it.
Spot-check episodes of each type against their records.
Problem: The same kind of records are categorized by different episode types.
Likely cause: Without an agreed set of types, different reviewers default to their own judgment for how to classify similar episodes. So, filtering and analysis by type become unreliable.
Example: One reviewer types a follow-up visit after surgery as "Surgery," while another person working the same case later types a similar follow-up visit as "Operation." Filtering the chronology by "Surgery" now returns an incomplete picture of the post-operative care.
Fix:
Agree on a defined set of episode types before more than one person works the case.
Apply the same type to the same kind of episode throughout.
Problem: The episode types in use don't match what the case actually needs to analyze.
Likely cause: The episode type was chosen without reference to the content of the corresponding records.
Example: A case built around a damages dispute over cost of care uses episode types organized by medical specialty — Orthopedics, Neurology — instead of by cost driver. Filtering by specialty doesn't answer the cost questions the case actually needs to address.
Fix:
Identify the core event on the page you're classifying — the phase of care, kind of treatment, or source of cost it represents.
Choose the episode type that reflects that core event and best serves what the case needs to analyze.
Problem: The set of episode types has categories that overlap.
Likely cause: A long, redundant list of episode types makes it unclear which type to apply to a given episode.
Example: A case ends up with both "Physical Therapy visit" and "Physical Therapy procedure" as separate episode types, even though every episode classified under one could just as easily fit the other.
Reviewers start splitting similar visits between the two at random.
Fix:
Keep the set of episode types as small as it can be while still being useful.
Merge or retire types that overlap or are rarely used.
Define what each remaining type means, so its use stays consistent.
Problem: Episodes are saved without a chosen type, so the Timeline and Calendar fill with "Unassigned" entries.
Likely cause: The type was skipped by mistake, or the reviewer was unsure which type applied and meant to come back to it later.
Example: A reviewer works quickly through records, creating episodes for each visit but leaving the field blank on several, intending to return once they have confirmed the right category. By the end of the session, a dozen episodes sit as "Unassigned" on the Timeline.
Fix:
Click Chronology and select Timeline.
Find the list of types at the bottom of the diagram.
Click Unassigned to isolate the episodes without a type on the timeline.
Click an episode, then click Open episode.
Add the correct type and any other missing information.
Summary
Episode types across your case are now accurate and applied consistently. The episodes are meaningful, mapped to the questions it actually needs to answer, and any mistyped or ambiguous episodes have been corrected against an agreed rule.