During an EHR downtime, nurses chart on paper; those forms are later scanned into the legal record. The inpatient coder finds the electronic notes incomplete for a secondary diagnosis supported only on the downtime forms. What is the appropriate action?

Downtime documentation that is subsequently filed into the EHR is part of the legal health record. Incomplete electronic notes alone can understate diagnoses or procedures. Coders must retrieve accessible downtime content to ensure complete, accurate coding rather than relying solely on the native electronic note stream.