Providers specify appointment requirements while they have a patient in the chair. These requirements immediately display in the Departure List when the Provider moves the patient from chair to departure.
Be aware of these points:
You need to consult with the patient.
The software caters automatically to any specified booking interval (for example, a Dentist may specify a period of at least 7 days before the next appointment).
EXACT audits all actions per day, so your appointment scheduling should be completed on the same day or the software will record it as a failed action in the Appointment Workflow Compliance Report. If you are forced to postpone your appointment scheduling for a patient, then
You have the option to Follow Up, for which it would be ideal to follow up later in the same day so that the scheduling action is still recorded as a successful action in the report.
You have the option to type a Reason for the postponement, and this reason will appear in the report.
To schedule an appointment - Drag and Drop
Locate a suitable time and then drag and drop the appointment:
To schedule an appointment - Edit option
Click the Appointment hyperlink to open the Edit Appointment window:
To schedule an appointment - Time Search option
Click the Search icon to display the Appointment Time Search
(These search results are already populated with the appointment details and booking interval specified by the provider.)
Edit the fields if necessary and then click the Book button to book the appointment directly from this search window as per current EXACT functionality.
To schedule an appointment - First available time option
Click the "First available time" hyperlink to display the first available time based on the booking interval specified by the Provider (7 days in this case), and the density of bookings during that period.
Drag the First available time hyperlink into that time in the Appointment Book, or into any other suitable gap in the Appointment Book.
Facilitating Patient Online Booking of Planned Treatment
Ideally Receptionists secure bookings from patients when the patients depart Reception. However, this is not always possible, and an alternative is to empower the patients to later self-book online.
From v11.3 SP3 Receptionists may be prompted in the Departure Task List to issue patients with a web address for later patient self-booking of planned treatment appointments.
This is only possible if these conditions are met:
All requirements for online appointment bookings are met
Planned treatment online appointment booking has been configured
Providers perform their role in enabling the planned treatment online booking while the patient is in the chair
Re-send the patient Online Booking Link
This applies to Planned Treatment/Single Patient URL from EXACT v12.1 and later.
Once the online booking link has been sent from the Appointment Workflow departure task list, it is also made available from the Follow Up tab, for re-sending the link to the patient as a reminder.
To re-send the patient Online Booking Link after initial sending from the Appointment Workflow
Select the patient in the Follow Up tab and select the Send Online Booking Link by SMS/Email button.
Select the SMS or Email option and click Send.
You can view the contact via the patient file Contacts tab.
To specify planned treatment online booking for departing patients
When the patient departs through reception the Receptionist attempts to book the planned treatment appointment manually in the appointment book.
If the patient cannot or will not commit to a booking, the Receptionist opts to send the planned treatment booking URL...If the patient has no Email and/or SMS contacts recorded, the Receptionist will first need to record them:
NOTE: EXACT will pop up a warning if the Receptionist clicks the online bookings button without having these contacts recorded:
In this case the Receptionist can either open the Patient File to record the details, or click the Collect Email and Mobile prompt in the Departure Task List:
TIP: When both the Collect prompt and the online bookings button both appear, first collect the contact details:
With contacts recorded, the Receptionist clicks the online bookings button to open the Send Online Booking Link by SMS/Email window:
The Receptionist checks (ticks) any combination of these checkboxes and then clicks Send.
The following processes then occur:
The SMS/Email with the booking URL is sent to the patient.
The online bookings prompt disappears from the Departure Task List:
The patient details display in the Follow Up tab under the category OLB Link Sent:
The booking URL is populated with details of the planned treatment booking requirement, ready for patient booking:
---PATIENT procedure---
When the patient selects an appointment gap, the software displays a Confirmation page with Provider details:
Once the patient confirms, the software prompts the patient to check for a confirmation message:
---RECEPTIONIST monitoring---
The following processes then occur, that the Receptionist can optionally monitor:
The booking is made in the appointment book, and displays an online booking icon:
Mouseover the icon for appointment details:
The patient is removed from the Follow Up tab:
The patient displays in the Online Appointments tab:
Note that you can filter the Online Appointments tab by means of Planned Treatment Bookings:
The booking becomes a statistic in the Feature Usage Report:
