Getting Connected
Affineon connects to Athena through the Athena Health Marketplace — no work required from your IT team. Your practice creates an "Affineon" role and uses a Task Assignment Override (TAO) to route incoming lab results and prescription renewals into that bucket. Documents remain fully viewable in the patient chart; they just don't clutter staff or clinician inboxes until Affineon has processed them.
The Labs Module
How Lab Results Are Processed
Results are processed within about 15 minutes of arrival, or grouped with related orders if a doctor prefers. Once processed, they're routed as follows:
~10% to staff — things the clinician doesn't need to see (e.g., a CCD lab from a hospital you didn't order, tests not performed, results requiring an ABN).
Post-visit labs: ~50% go directly to the patient; ~40% flagged abnormal stay in the clinician inbox.
Pre-visit labs: ~90% go to the patient and bypass the clinician inbox.
How "Abnormal" Is Defined
At launch, Affineon configures rules with your practice at either the practice or provider level. Default rules are provided, and any threshold can be tightened or loosened.
Patient Notes for Non-Critical Results
Non-concerning results trigger a templated note, so content is 100% predictable. Each note has three parts:
Panel description — tailored language explaining what was tested.
Out-of-range-but-not-concerning section — heads off calls like "Didn't you see my high sodium?"
Appointment block — references an upcoming appointment, a tickler ("schedule in six months"), or a general follow-up. Fully configurable.
Pre-Visit Labs Use Different Messaging
Pre-visit notes are deliberately minimal to avoid prompting a cancellation. For anything short of critical, the message is simply: "Good news, your lab results are back. I look forward to discussing them at your upcoming visit."
Features That Save Time Even When Results Stay in Your Inbox
Even for abnormal results, Affineon pre-populates:
Click-list results — key analytes surfaced on the patient face sheet, viewable without clicking in.
Smart calculations — ASCVD or PREVENT on lipid panels; CKD staging (flagging stage transitions like 2 → 3A), FIB-4, and kidney failure risk on metabolic panels when data allows.
Trend section — compares current results to prior ones.
AI-generated checklist — off by default, available on request; popular with newer advanced clinical practitioners.
Normal Results That Are Still Routed to the Doctor
Three categories of normals are always held back for clinician review:
Significant velocity changes — PSA up >75%/year, platelets down >50%, rapid creatinine rise or hemoglobin drop.
Results from acute visits — typically needed to rule something out.
Unusual or infrequently ordered panels — ordered for a reason, so returned to you.
Practices with heavy pre-visit labs can see up to 80% reduction in lab inbox volume; post-visit-heavy practices see closer to 50%.
For practices with a high volume of pre-visit labs, Affineon can reduce inbox volume for labs by up to 80%. For practices that run mostly post-visit labs, the reduction is closer to 50%. Either way, most clinicians see multiple hours of savings per week.
The Prescription Renewals Module
This module often saves the most time for MAs, nurses, and renewal staff — and ensures protocols are followed consistently.
Auto-Denials
When a renewal request arrives, Affineon first checks for three conditions that trigger automatic denial:
Duplicate request
Inactive patient
Deceased patient
In these cases, the pharmacy receives a denial with the appropriate reason.
Protocol Checks
For all other requests, Affineon runs your protocols against the patient chart. For example, a diabetic protocol might require a visit every six months for controlled patients and an A1C every three months for uncontrolled ones. Affineon surfaces the latest A1C, recent visits, and recent lab work — or flags what's missing.
Routing After Protocol Check
Protocol not met → call center or staff to contact the patient for a visit or missing labs.
Protocol met, non-controlled → staff with delegated authority for quick approval.
Controlled substances → always to the prescriber, with key data (e.g., last narcotics contract) pre-surfaced.
Controlled + protocol not met → staff to coordinate visits or labs first.Important
Note on Approvals
Affineon never auto-approves anything and does not have prescribing authority in any state. The time savings come from eliminating chart-digging and enforcing protocols consistently — not from removing the human from the loop. Practice staff involved in prescription review typically save three to five hours per week.
For questions or to begin a trial, contact the CarePilot Customer Success Team via the support chat or at [email protected]