AHIMA VLab® is the virtual practice environment for health information education. Explore healthcare technology and build your knowledge with integrated activities.
One platform, hundreds of patient cases, and unlimited opportunities to strengthen your career prospects. AHIMA VLab® is where future healthcare leaders thrive.
What are the AHIMA VLab® terms of use?
Terms of Use
AHIMA VLab® use is specifically limited to formal short-term HIM education in a college or university recognized and accredited by the U.S. Department of Education or its Regional Accreditors. Any use by an institution which does not fit these criteria is prohibited.
Users of AHIMA VLab® are limited to persons actively enrolled under such programs. Use of AHIMA VLab® by enrollees is limited to their academic work only. Login credentials may not be shared.
AHIMA VLab® is strictly prohibited from use by a commercial enterprise, which is not otherwise permitted above, for any commercial purpose, or for any public display (commercial or non-commercial).
Users acknowledge that all rights (including without limitation, copyrights, patents and trade secrets) in AHIMA VLab® are the sole and exclusive property of the American Health Information Management Association or its licensors. By using this service, you do not become the owner of any licensed rights, but you do have a limited license to use it in accordance with the provisions of this End User Terms of Use.
AHIMA reserves the right to discontinue the subscription of users who demonstrate unacceptable use of AHIMA VLab®, such as sharing of login credentials, cheating, etc.
Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
Why should my academic program adopt/subscribe to AHIMA VLab®?
Learn to keep health information human.
We’re purposeful about advancing health information education through the AHIMA VLab® experiential learning approach. With AHIMA VLab® practice meets theory. You’ll see the patient in front of the data and learn first-hand how the accuracy, protection, and accessibility of health information impacts every step of the patient journey. AHIMA VLab® gives you access to hundreds of authentic and realistic patient cases.
AHIMA VLab® is continuously evolving after more than a decade of serving our community. We remain committed to our mission of empowering you to impact health, as we uncover opportunities that accelerate learning and create insightful learning experiences.
By working with real applications used in healthcare within a virtual environment, you’ll:
How does my academic program adopt/subscribe to AHIMA VLab®?
Begin or renew your academic program’s subscription using the AHIMA VLab® Subscription form →
What are the available purchase options?
Please see page 5 of the AHIMA VLab® Brochure.
AHIMA VLab® PackageModules Included: |
Medical Coder |
Health Information Administrator |
Authentic Patient Cases (Redacted) |
Included | Included |
Realistic Patient Case Scenarios |
Included | Included |
3M Coding and Reimbursement System |
Included | Included |
Nuance Clintegrity™ |
Included | Included |
Find-A-Code |
Included | Included |
MEDITECH Expanse |
Included | |
drchrono |
Included | |
EDCO Solcom |
Included | |
Ciox HealthSource Gym |
Optional |
Optional |
MediRegs Coding Center for Students |
Optional |
Optional |
Ciox HealthSource Gym and MediRegs Coding Center for Students |
Optional |
Optional |
How much does AHIMA VLab® cost?
AHIMA VLab® Health Information Administrator (HIA) Package: Includes every application and resource provided on the former VLab Full Access version; enrollment codes for this package are $195 each.
AHIMA VLab® HIA & MediRegs Coding Center for Students Bundle: Includes every application and resource in the AHIMA VLab® HIA package, plus the MediRegs Coding Center for Students (an online medical coding, billing and reimbursement reference tool); enrollment codes for this bundle are $314 each.
AHIMA VLab® HIA & Ciox Coding Gym Bundle: Includes every application and resource in the AHIMA VLab® HIA package, plus the Ciox HealthSource Gym (for medical coding practice); enrollment codes for this bundle are $314 each.
AHIMA VLab® HIA & MediRegs Coding Center for Students & Ciox Coding Gym Bundle: Includes every application and resource in the AHIMA VLab® HIA package, plus the MediRegs Coding Center for Students (an online medical coding, billing and reimbursement reference tool) and the Ciox HealthSource Gym (for medical coding practice); enrollment codes for this bundle are $433 each.
AHIMA VLab® Medical Coder Package: Includes the three encoders (Nuance Clintegrity, 3M and Find-A-Code) as well as the Patient Cases; enrollment codes for this package are $75 each.
AHIMA VLab® Medical Coder & MediRegs Coding Center for Students Bundle: Includes every application and resource in the AHIMA VLab® Medical Coder package, plus the MediRegs Coding Center for Students (an online medical coding, billing and reimbursement reference tool); enrollment codes for this bundle are $214 each.
AHIMA VLab® Medical Coder & Ciox Coding Gym Bundle: Includes every application and resource in the AHIMA VLab® Medical Coder package, plus the Ciox HealthSource Gym (for medical coding practice); enrollment codes for this bundle are $214 each.
AHIMA VLab® Medical Coder & MediRegs Coding Center for Students & Ciox Coding Gym Bundle: Includes every application and resource in the AHIMA VLab® Medical Coder package, plus the MediRegs Coding Center for Students (an online medical coding, billing and reimbursement reference tool) plus the Ciox HealthSource Gym (for medical coding practice); enrollment codes for this bundle are $353 each.
How does an instructor request a demo of AHIMA VLab®?
To schedule a demo of AHIMA VLab®, please fill out our Instructor Demo Request Form.
Where do I find the latest news/information/changes about AHIMA VLab®?
On the AHIMA VLab® homepage, refer to the Announcements section on the right-hand side of the page. Scroll down to see additional Announcements.
Enrollment/access information:
How do I order enrollment codes for students?
Two ways:
How do I request instructor enrollment codes for new/additional faculty?
Ask your AHIMA VLab® Primary Contact to submit the request via email to AHIMA VLab® support.
How do students purchase AHIMA VLab® directly from the AHIMA Store?
Please ask students to Go to the AHIMA Store →. Once the online purchase is completed, access is automatically provided to AHIMA VLab® and can be accessed via the AHIMA Learning Center page.
Application-level information:
What applications are available on AHIMA VLab®?
MEDITECH Expanse
MEDITECH Expanse features two major modules: Acute and Ambulatory. Under the Acute module, students gain valuable hands-on experience using inpatient functions such as Patient Care Services, Physician Care Manager, Deficiency Analysis, Delinquency Reporting and Release of Information. Under the Ambulatory module, students gain valuable hands-on experience using outpatient functions such as Office Staff Home Screen, Clinical Chart Review, Registering a Patient, Clinical Documentation and Patient Identity Management.
DrChrono Outpatient Physician Office Practice Management System
An award-winning, cloud-based physician practice management system, giving students experience in many different HIM activities, including building clinical document templates, registering new patients, editing patient data, scheduling patient appointments, and generating bills, among others.
This EHR system includes pre-built patient cases and also allows students to register and build their own cases. Explores:
3M Coding and Reimbursement System
3M’s logic-based encoder software provides students with access to ICD-10 diagnostic and procedure codebooks, CPT and HCPCS codebooks, reimbursement groupers, and extensive coding and general references (a medical dictionary, a drug reference guide, and anatomy illustrations). Students gain familiarity with encoder software tools and the resources they provide.
The 3M package includes:
Find-A-Code
Find-A-Code is an online database of medical billing codes and information. Going far beyond the free trial version of Find-A-Code, AHIMA VLab® features several learning activities for students to get experience assigning diagnosis and procedure codes.
By completing the AHIMA VLab® learning activities, students quickly discover that rather than searching through 10 or more books, Find-A-Code has combined the information into one simple search. Find-A-Code has many tools to assist students in their efforts to accurately assign diagnosis and procedure codes. Students particularly enjoy completing the activity in which they use the Code-A-Note computer assisted coding (CAC) tool.
Nuance Clintegrity™ Facility and Physician Coding, Compliance and Abstracting
This knowledge-based encoder software suite includes ICD-10 diagnostic and procedure codebooks, CPT and HCPCS codebooks, and reimbursement groupers. Students can access extensive coding and general references, such as a medical dictionary, a drug reference guide, and anatomy illustrations, and can gain familiarity with encoder software tools and the resources they provide.
The package includes:
EDCO Health Information Solutions - Solcom EDMS
This document imaging system serves as an AHIMA VLabⓇ chart repository. The application includes scanned images of more than 300 authentic patient records for student use in coding exercises, chart analysis, general orientation to medical records forms and indexing.
CIOX HealthSource Gym
Bundle the CIOX HealthSource Gym with other AHIMA VLab® applications as an add-on subscription to the industry's only experiential coding training and assessment solution. CIOX HealthSource Gym is a web-based application powered by clinical content presented in an experiential format that:
Watch the CIOX HealthSource Gym demo
MediRegs Coding Center for Students
AHIMA partnered with Wolters Kluwer to offer MediRegs Coding Center for Students as an add-on subscription to the AHIMA VLab® learning experience. The MediRegs Coding Center for Students is an online reference for learning to code. Students can access this online reference, along with other applications used in practice.
MediRegs Coding Center for Students features:
Watch the MediRegs Coding Center for Students demo
Please see page 3 of the AHIMA VLab® Brochure.
Activity/Assessment-level information:
Please refer to the AHIMA VLab® Activities – Estimated Completion Times.
How do I assign the available activities/assessments to my students?
Within the weekly modules of your course syllabi. Add the title of the AHIMA VLab® activity/assessment and the due date into the “correct week” of your syllabus; then add an assignment page into your local campus LMS – and that’s it! Students can upload their graded scoresheet from each assessment directly into your local campus LMS.
How do students navigate their way through the course content?
Refer students to the video 04-Navigating To and Completing Your Assigned Activity.
Instructor Information:
Are the AHIMA VLab® learning activities linked to the prevailing academic curricula competencies?
Yes. Every AHIMA VLab® activity is linked to one or more of the prevailing academic curricula competencies. The Competency Maps are available under Instructors Resources.
How do I access available instructor resources (answer keys/other)?
Instructors only have access to the Instructors Resources content tile located directly on the AHIMA VLab® homepage!
General information:
Where do users go for technical support?
Contact our technical support team M-F 7:00am-7:00pm Central (excluding major US national holidays) at Email: academyhelp@ahima.org