Canvas provides powerful tools to help clinicians document, update, and manage patient conditions efficiently and accurately. Clinicians can record new diagnoses, assess and update existing conditions, resolve inactive ones, and revise diagnoses while maintaining historical data. With the ability to manage coding gaps, Canvas also helps ensure accurate documentation, supports billing compliance, and streamlines workflows to improve clinical and operational outcomes.
The Diagnose command is used to record new conditions in a patient’s chart, creating a clear and structured entry for accurate clinical documentation. It can be initiated from the patient chart or directly from the patient summary, where it automatically inserts the Diagnose command wherever the cursor is focused.
When using the Diagnose command, the following fields are available to provide detailed and meaningful documentation:
Background: Completing this field is optional but helpful for establishing a comprehensive history.
Approximate Date of Onset: Enter a free-text start date, such as “yesterday,” “last week,” “3 years ago,” or “2015.”
Today’s Assessment: Summarize clinical thinking around the condition, synthesizing subjective and objective data from the exam.
Once saved, the condition is immediately visible on the patient summary as an active entry, ensuring seamless tracking and documentation.
If the patient already has a selected diagnosis, the system will alert This patient has already been diagnosed with this condition
to prevent duplication. Best practice is to use the Assess Condition command to update the diagnosis rather than creating a duplicate.
The Assess Condition command updates and documents progress for an existing condition. You can add this command directly to a note or by hovering over the condition in the Patient Summary and clicking Assess, which inserts the command at the current cursor position.
Background: automatically carries forward details documented in the most recent Diagnose or Assess command, ensuring continuity when managing a patient’s condition. Any new information added will replace the existing content rather than appending to it, maintaining a clear and updated record.
Status: provide current condition of status
🟢 Improved
🔘 Unchanged
🔴 Deteriorated
Today's Assessment: Based on condition status, update observations made at current visit
Clicking on a condition in the Patient Summary opens a modal displaying:
Background: Displays the condition’s most recent and historically documented background information.
Associated Medications: Lists medications related to the condition.
Comprehensive History: Provides a timeline of all prior assessments, including:
Observations from previous visits.
ICD-10 diagnoses, both original and updated, entered via the Change Diagnosis command.
This functionality ensures that users can review the full evolution of a condition, maintaining transparency and continuity in care.
The Past Medical History command is designed to document a patient's medical history. It captures conditions that are no longer active but may still impact clinical decision-making now or in the future.
Approximate Start Date: Free-text date, such as last week, 3 years ago, 2015 or specific date if known
Approximate End Date: Enter a free-text date similar to the start date format.
Show on Condition List: Toggle to display the condition on the Conditions List in the left panel of the patient’s chart.
Comments: Any additional notes (up to 1000 characters).
The Resolve Condition command closes an active condition listed for the patient. You can execute this command by adding it directly to the note or by clicking Resolve next to the condition in the Patient Summary.
Rationale: reason for resolving the condition
Show on conditions list: If selected, resolved conditions will appear at the bottom of the Patient Summary in gray non-bolded text
The Change Diagnosis command enables updating the name or ICD-10 code for a condition without losing historical data, which is particularly useful when new information leads to a more precise diagnosis.
New Diagnosis: Select the updated ICD-10 diagnosis to replace the original
When searching for the updated diagnosis, you may utilize natural language or ICD-10. When searching by ICD-10, omit the decimal point for the best search experience
Background: If needed, add additional background information to provide context for the updated diagnosis.
Today's Assessment: Document any observations made during the current visit to reflect the revised condition.
When the note is billable, the Change Diagnosis command ensures the billing footer and claim are updated. The new ICD-10 code is added for the revised condition, and the previous ICD-10 code associated with the original diagnosis is automatically removed.
Coding gaps are potential opportunities to enhance the accuracy of a patient’s diagnosis coding, especially for risk adjustment programs like Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCC). These gaps occur when a diagnosis or condition relevant to risk adjustment is missing or not properly documented in the patient’s record
To use the Coding Gaps feature, contact Canvas Support to enable.
Manage coding gaps using four distinct commands:
Create Coding Gap: Document a potential coding gap by suggesting a diagnosis that may be missing from the patient’s record.
Validate Coding Gap: Confirm the suggested coding gap as clinically relevant and document its validity in the patient’s record. When a coding gap is validated, it is added to the Patient Summary in the coding gaps section.
Defer Coding Gap: Temporarily postpone action on a coding gap when additional information or follow-up is needed before making a decision.
Assess Coding Gap: Review the coding gap and either accept or refute it. If accepted, follow the standard Diagnose command workflow to document the condition, which is then added as an active condition while the coding gap is removed from the Patient Summary. If refuted, close the coding gap with documentation explaining why it is not valid.