The following information is from the Indian Health Service (IHS) Resource Patient Management System (RPMS) Patient Care Component (PCC) Management Reports (APCL), V 3.0 User's Manual, accessed on the Internet on March 25, 2005. The following information is from pp 86-7 of the electronic file, and has been reformatted for readability. The entire manual will open in a new window by clicking here.

Ambulatory Patient Care (APC) visits are the out-patient portion of workload in the IHS data system. The other workload components are in-patient, contract health and dental.

See the A1 Handout for an example of an APC Report (a.k.a. the 1A or A1 report) with footnote explanations.

APC reports examine Patient Care Component (PCC) visits and count all APC visits in a given time frame for the selected facility.

Entry of all data into the PCC includes these three visit attributes: a designation of location of visit, visit type, and service category.

Location of Visit is the facility where the visit occurred (e.g., Crowpoint Hospital, Yakima Health Center, home, San Simon school).

Visit Types include:
- Indian Health Service (IHS)
- Contract
- Tribal
- Other
- Program
- Veteran's Administration (VA)

Service Categories include:
- ambulatory
- hospitalization
- in-hospital care
- chart review
- telecommunications
- day surgery
- observation
- event (historical)
- nursing home care
- not found

These three visit attributes, plus the clinic type designation for outpatient clinic visits, determine whether a visit is an official APC visit for inclusion in the IHS data system. The criteria for inclusion is listed in the next column.

To be considered an APC visit, a visit MUST meet the following criteria:

1. Fall within the date range specified.
2. Have other medical data linked to the visit record.
3. Have a service category of:
   - ambulatory
   - day surgery
   - observation
   - nursing home
   Excludes: chart review, hospitalization, not found, in-hospital, and event.
4. Have a visit type of:
   - IHS
   - 638 Program
   - Tribal
   - Other
5. Have a primary purpose of visit (POV cannot be an uncoded diagnoses .9999).
6. Have a valid location.
7. Have a valid primary provider.
   Excludes: A primary provider discipline of 13 (CHN) or 32 (CHR) and a location of visit other than an IHS facility (code>49).
8. Have a valid clinic code.
   Excludes: mail, telephone call, chart review, follow-up letter, radio call, dental, education class and employee health.

When running APC reports, visit date range and location must be specified.