HL7 ADT_A13 (Cancel Discharge/End Visit) | Integration Soup HL7 Reference Guide

HL7 ADT_A13 Cancel Discharge/End Visit

The discharge or end-visit message was wrong, so the encounter needs to become active again.

HL7 message structure ADT_A01 groups and segments from HL7 v2.5.1 Hide structure

These are the generated groups and segments for the version selected at the top of the page. The article explains the workflow, and this panel follows the chosen HL7 version.

Message Structure

Segment	Name	Required	Repeatable
MSH	Message Header	Yes	No
SFT	Software Segment	No	Yes
EVN	Event Type	Yes	No
PID	Patient Identification	Yes	No
PD1	Patient Additional Demographic	No	No
ROL	Role	No	Yes
NK1	Next of Kin / Associated Parties	No	Yes
PV1	Patient Visit	Yes	No
PV2	Patient Visit - Additional Information	No	No
ROL	Role	No	Yes
DB1	Disability	No	Yes
OBX	Observation/Result	No	Yes
AL1	Patient Allergy Information	No	Yes
DG1	Diagnosis	No	Yes
DRG	Diagnosis Related Group	No	No
ADT_A01.PROCEDURE	Procedure group	No	Yes
PR1	Procedures	Yes	No
ROL	Role	No	Yes
GT1	Guarantor	No	Yes
ADT_A01.INSURANCE	Insurance group	No	Yes
IN1	Insurance	Yes	No
IN2	Insurance Additional Information	No	No
IN3	Insurance Additional Information, Certification	No	Yes
ROL	Role	No	Yes
ACC	Accident	No	No
UB1	UB82	No	No
UB2	UB92 Data	No	No
PDA	Patient Death and Autopsy	No	No

ADT_A13 cancels an earlier A03 discharge/end-visit. It is used when a discharge was entered in error, the patient did not actually leave, or the discharge/end-visit decision was reversed. Downstream systems should treat the encounter as no longer discharged by that A03 event.

A13 commonly uses ADT^A13^ADT_A01. The trigger event is A13, and the message structure is ADT_A01. That shared structure is why the generated panel below looks like the admit/register/update family.

A small A13 example

MSH|^~\&|REG|CITYHOSP|EHR|CITYHOSP|20260715164500||ADT^A13^ADT_A01|ADT130001|P|2.5.1 EVN|A13|20260715164400|||WARDCLERK^Morgan^Lee PID|1||123456^^^CITYHOSP^MR||Smith^Jane^Anne^^Ms^^L||19800314|F PV1|1|I|WARD2^205^1^CITYHOSP||||12345^Careful^Clara|||||||||||VST440001^^^CITYHOSP^VN|||||||||||||||||||||||||20260715081200

What systems do with it

The sender is usually registration, ward administration, or the EHR. Receivers use A13 to reopen or reactivate the encounter state that A03 had ended. That can affect bed/census views, result routing, medication administration, charge posting, notifications, and any interface that stops sending data once a visit is discharged.

The receiver should match the patient and visit carefully through PID and PV1. If the visit number is missing or ambiguous, the receiving system should not guess based only on patient demographics.

How to read the structure

A13 uses the ADT_A01 structure. The practical minimum is MSH, EVN, PID, and PV1. Depending on the receiver, optional allergy, diagnosis, insurance, guarantor, and observation content may be sent again as a fresh encounter snapshot.

Many sites send A13 with the active location and visit state after the canceled discharge. That is helpful, but the interface agreement should say whether the A13 is a full current-state snapshot or only a cancel event.

Implementation traps

A13 is not a readmission. Do not create a new encounter just because the patient is active again. The point is to cancel the prior discharge on the same visit.

Also watch stale downstream closures. If an A03 already stopped orders, billing windows, notification subscriptions, or portal visibility, the A13 may need to reopen more than a census flag. This is where ADT workflows can look easy in a parser and still be tricky operationally.

Reference notes

HL7 event references describe A13 as the cancel-discharge or cancel-end-visit event for a prior A03. Caristix describes it as sent when an A03 is canceled because of erroneous entry or a decision not to discharge, and IHE Patient Encounter Management mappings published by Oracle map A13 to the ADT_A01 structure.