Case vs Encounter

CASE: The Case Type is used to group together visits or treatments for a specific illness or injury, and reflects a patient “episode of care.” The case stores diagnosis codes, the starting date of the illness or injury, and other relevant information that is pulled into charges. The default values for Case include: Consultation, Hospitalization, Office Visit, and Surgery. Enter a discharge for the patient will close a Case; additional charges entered after the Case is discharged/closed will create a new Case record.

ENCOUNTER: The Encounter record ties together all the charges for a particular date. Encounters are a subset of the original Case record. The Encounter can also be thought of as a provider “Visit” record. A new Encounter record will be created for each date of service.  If multiple charges for a date of service are created by different providers, or on different dates with some backdated charges, you may have multiple encounter records for a single date of service.