Configuring Appointment Workflow

To configure automated prompts in the Departure List that the Receptionist needs to act upon

Access the Appointment Workflow Wizard and then configure from the Departure Details screen for any or all of these options:

Configuration Tasks

Configure the Appointment Arrival Task options. This includes configuring arrival tasks for Medical History, Oral Health Survey, Terms and Conditions and Marketing Consent.

Specify the parameters for the Departure List (which standard tasks the Receptionist must process during patient departure), and create custom tasks for the Receptionist to process.

Prompt the Receptionist to schedule bookings based on the Providers' planned treatment on the chart

Prompt the Receptionist to issue a web address to the patient via SMS and/or Email so that the patient can self-book planned treatment appointments online.

Prompt the Receptionist to book future Recall appointments for patients whose current treatment is completed, and for whom no further treatment has been planned on the chart.

Prompt the Receptionist to process patient payments

Prompt the Receptionist to ask for contact details if a patient's email address is missing, or mobile phone number is missing from the records.

Prompt the Receptionist for custom reasons that are not by default included on the Departure Details screen. For example:

• To wish the patient Happy Birthday for birthdays in the following week.

• To issue a brochure on practice special offers for the next 6 months.

• To issue a list of services offered by the practice.

• To discuss discounts offered for patient referrals.

• To direct patients to the comprehensive practice website where they can view special offers and be further educated on the benefits of various dental services.

• To sign-up the patient for a newsletter.

• To request the patient complete an evaluation form on the practice's customer service.

Configure arrival options from a single Appointment Arrival Options screen:

• How often to check patient details

• Medical History

• Oral Health Survey

• Terms and Conditions

• Marketing Consent

  These options apply also to Clinipad, which offers a means of independent electronic data capture by patients or practitioners.

To configure Appointment Arrival options

1. Select Configure > Appointment Book.

2. In the Appointment Book Setup screen, select the Arrival Options button:

   

3. Configure the Appointment Arrival Options window as described in the images below and in the hyperlinked topics:
   With Terms and Conditions tab selected:

With Terms and Conditions tab selected:

With Contact Consent tab selected:

With Patient Data Use Disclaimer selected

Clinipad software includes a default (but editable) disclaimer on the use of patient data.

By default this is shown to the patient in the Clinipad patient demographic form, but it can be optionally de-activated / hidden.

To view or edit the Patient Data Use Disclaimer

1. Select Configuration > Appointment Book.

2. In the Appointment Books window, click the Arrival Options button to display the Appointment Arrival Options window:

   

   The option to Show patient information on data use is ticked by default.

3. Edit the text if required (TIP: copy and save it first).

   Note that Superusers can also edit and save the text by means of this setting: clinipad.patient.data.disclaimer.

4. To reinstate the original text after editing, either

   • Be sure to copy it before editing, then paste it back.

   or

   • Delete all text then click OK to close the window. When you re-open the window the original text will be reinstated. However, the checkbox will be have been de-selected to guard against you adding a blank page to Clinipad, so you also need to Tick the checkbox again to continue using Patient Data Use

To stop displaying Patient Data Use text to patients

Deselect the checkbox:

To reinstate the original Patient Data Use text

1. Delete all text.

2. Click OK.

   When you re-open Clinipad the original text will be reinstated.

   However, the checkbox will be have been de-selected to guard against you adding a blank page to Clinipad.

   

3. Tick the checkbox again to continue using Patient Data Use:

   

To configure arrival options for Medical History

Select Configure > Appointment Book, and in the Appointment Book Setup screen, select the Arrival Options button to display the Appointment Arrival Options window:

Medical History configuration

By default the Arrival screen shows the Medical History prompt as ticked:

Receptionists can un-tick this field if it proves unnecessary.

Background:

This default setting is controlled per patient from the Medical History Configuration screen.

To configure Arrival procedures for Medical History

Select either

Configure > Appointment Book > Arrival Options > Medical History

or

Patient File > Medical (tab) > Spanner Icon :

The Alert if Medical History is [x] months overdue field is by default set to a value of 1.

Consequently, Medical History will be prompted for update once a month, and the arrival window Send a Medical History form to Clinipad tick-box will be ticked by default, unless the patient has already completed their MedHist forms within the last month.

To disable this auto-prompt for a patient, set the value in the above field to 0, and click OK.

1. Select Configure > Appointment Book, and in the Appointment Book Setup screen, select the Arrival Options button to display the Appointment Arrival Options window.

2. In the Appointment Arrival Options window, select the Contact Consent tab:
   

   

Collect patient consent to send marketing

When checked, EXACT will display Contact Consent as a required task in the Arrivals Task List, if the patient has not yet given consent.

Contact Consent text

EXACT delivers a simple contact consent text template, but you can optionally edit this as required - simply click in the text box and edit it, or paste text from another application.

For Clinipad users, your custom text can extend to up to three Clinipad pages.

The Practitioner view of Contact Consent

From the Arrivals Task List window practitioners may see either paper signature, electronic or Clinipad options.

If the Receptionist fails to capture Contact Consent at arrival, EXACT will then prompt again at departure, from the Departure Task List

1. Select Configure > Appointment Book, and in the Appointment Book Setup screen, select the Arrival Options button to display the Appointment Arrival Options window:

   

   
   

2. In the Appointment Arrival Options window, click the Oral Health Survey button to open the Oral Health Surveys Configuration.

   (This configuration is also accessible in the Patient's Chart tab on the Oral Health activity tab):

   

   Refer to the Configuring Oral Health Surveys and it's sub-topics for details.

Select Configure > Appointment Book, and in the Appointment Book Setup screen, select the Arrival Options button to display the Appointment Arrival Options window:

Terms and Conditions
Check patient details every [x] months	Set how often to ask patients to check their details. Patient details are sent to Clinipad alongside every other request for a form or update, so this option only comes into its own if no other forms are due when the patient checks in. Note that 0 months = Don’t check patient details. From v11.6 this configuration is no longer in the Configure > Patient File screen
Terms and Conditions Enabled	This check box toggles the entire Terms and Conditions feature on or off.

Who needs to sign a Terms and Conditions document:

This provides three options for when to generate the request for terms and conditions, and for whom:

New Patients only:

Previous Terms and Conditions documents were collected on paper.

This option is for practices that have routinely been collecting terms and conditions documents from their patients using a paper system. The arrivals process will only state that the document needs to be collected for new patients.

Patients with no Terms and Conditions document on file:

This option is for practices that have not been collecting terms and conditions, but are going to start now, or practices starting to collect terms and conditions on the computer system using new forms. All patients without a record of terms and conditions stored on the computer system will be asked to sign a copy.

Patients who haven’t signed a since Terms and Conditions last changed on [Date] :

This option is for practices that have been using terms and conditions on the computer for a while, but then need to update their terms and conditions, meaning those that have already signed must sign again. Choose this option and the date the change occurred to make patients receive a request to sign, if they haven't yet signed the updated document.

To edit Terms and Conditions:

(This is the plain text statement for the patient to sign)

Type the changes or paste (CTRL+V) from an existing terms and conditions document.
Formatting is limited to spacing and carriage returns.

Configuring Arrival Procedures for Contact Consent

1. Select Configure > Appointment Book, and in the Appointment Book Setup screen, select the Arrival Options button to display the Appointment Arrival Options window.

2. In the Appointment Arrival Options window, select the Contact Consent tab:

   
   

In the Appointment Arrival Options window, click the Contact Consent tab:

When checked, EXACT will display Contact Consent as a required task in the Arrivals Task List, if the patient has not yet given consent.

Contact Consent text

EXACT delivers a simple contact consent text template, but you can optionally edit this as required - simply click in the text box and edit it, or paste text from another application.

For Clinipad users, your custom text can extend to up to three Clinipad pages.

The Practitioner view of Contact Consent

From the Arrivals Task List window practitioners may see either paper signature, electronic or Clinipad options:

If the Receptionist fails to capture Contact Consent at arrival, EXACT will then prompt again at departure, from the Departure Task List:

1. Select Configure > Practice Settings to display the Practice Settings window.

2. Under Appointment Books, select as follows:

   NOTE: First enable Multicolumn Appointment Book before enabling the Appointment Workflow.

   
   

3. Select the spanner icon to display the Appointment Workflow Wizard at the Departure Details screen:

   

What does this configuration achieve?

This creates a template for the possible tasks in the Departure List that appears as a pane on the left side of the Main screen.

To configure the Departure Details screen

1. Access the Appointment Workflow Wizard to display the first screen, the Departure Details:

   

   
   Check the appropriate boxes on this screen. When you click Next >, the appropriate configuration screens will display.
   

Book a Planned Treatment Appointment

Prompt the Receptionist to schedule bookings based on the Providers' planned treatment on the chart.

Book a Recall Appointment for Treatment Complete Patients

Prompt the Receptionist to book future appointments for patients whose current treatment is completed, and for whom no further treatment has been planned on the chart. This is only selectable if your Manage Recalls parameters are configured.

Process a Payment

Prompt the Receptionist to process patient payments. This by default includes all invoiced amounts, and can be configured to include completed, un-invoiced treatments, and planned treatments.

Prompt for Email Address or Mobile Phone, if Missing

Prompt the Receptionist to ask for details if a patient's email address is missing, or mobile phone number is missing from the records.

Custom Options

Prompt the Receptionist for custom reasons that are not by default included on the Departure Details screen. This could be any task that is relevant to the practice.

What does this configuration achieve?

With the patient in the chair, Providers set guidelines for the planned treatment appointments that they want for the patient.

When the patient moves through to reception to depart the practice, the Receptionist is prompted in the Departure List to schedule these planned treatment appointments, following the Provider's guidelines.

Receptionists have multiple tools to facilitate the booking.

For example, they can can book these appointments by means of drag and drop or by editing:

Click the Appointment hyperlink to open the Edit Appointment window:

This functionality needs to be configured...

To configure Planned Treatment Appointment departure tasks

1. Access the Appointment Workflow Wizard and check Book a Planned Treatment Appointment.

   
   
   

2. Book a Planned Treatment Appointment: Check / select this if you want patients with planned treatment appointments to book those appointments before leaving the Practice.

3. Sending to the Follow Up Tab is an option to send unbooked appointments to a postponement area, for handling later (for example, if receptionists are expected to be exceptionally busy):

   

   • Select Prompt to have the system ask whether to send the unbooked appointment to the Follow Up tab.

   • Select Always to send unbooked appointments to the Follow Up tab anyway.

   • Select Never if you do not want to configure this option.

4. When Providers specify appointment requirements, they may include a booking interval - the minimum time required before the next appointment. These intervals carry through to the display on the Departure List, where the EXACT software calculates and displays the first available time slot in the appointment book. EXACT uses the default booking interval unless a Provider manually specifies otherwise. the default options are from 1-7 days, and then 2 weeks, 3 weeks, or 4 weeks.

   For example, today the patient has had a crown preparation visit, and Lab work is now required. There is no point in re-booking the patient for the crown fitting before the Lab work has been completed, so a minimum interval must be specified, anticipating the Lab work duration.

5. No further configuration is required for Planned Treatment Appointments. Click Next> or Finish.

Configuration is per Provider

In the Online Booking Configuration screen a Planning tab enables configuration per Provider.

Configuration parameters for each Provider include:

• Free Time (no appointments booked for that period, allowing for planned treatment online booking into the free time)

• SMS and Email Confirmation Templates (confirmation of patient booking)

• SMS and Email Sending Templates (for sending the patient a link to an online booking web page populated with the patient's planned treatment details). Default Sending templates for sending the web address are provided in the software. You can use these as is, customise them, or create new templates.

To configure the planned appointment Times, Providers and Email/SMS Templates

1. Select Configuration > Online Booking to open the Online Booking Configuration screen.

2. Select the Planned tab:

   

3. Practice Manager users only:

   Order of Appointments: In the case of a combined recall, this sets the order of appointments.

   Maximum Minutes between appointments: Determines the gap between multiple appointments, should they be booked.

   Emergency contact email: Error notifications are sent to this Email address.
   

4. Select the +1 button to open a window in which to configure a Provider for the planned treatment booking:

   

   Provider: Select a Provider for whom you will set up the availability for bookings.

   Note that you can optionally populate these fields by selecting the Copy settings from Provider button and then selecting the other Provider from the popup window:

   

5. Configure the Free time available for planned treatment appointments:

   Specific clinic: Check (tick) this checkbox if you are limiting online bookings to one specific clinic.

   All unbooked non-clinic time: Check (tick) this checkbox if you are limiting online bookings to all time available outside of clinics.

   All unbooked time: Check (tick) this checkbox if you are limiting online bookings to all free time, whether in or out of clinics.

6. Setup Confirmation Templates (where the patient receives confirmation of the booking) in SMS and Email. Either use the same templates as for other booking types or create templates especially for treatment planning online booking.

7. Setup the Sending Templates (where the patient is sent an online booking link to a web page populated with the patient's planned treatment details). Either use the default templates provided for SMS and Email, or create custom templates.

   Default Sending Templates:

   

   Default SMS Sending Template (•PLND_OLB_SMS):

   

   
   

   Default Email Sending Template (•PLND_OLB_EMAIL):

   

Merge field requirement for custom templates

IMPORTANT: Notice the [patient.planned.url] merge field in the above SMS and Email default templates. It propagates the planned treatment details to the booking website so that patients book specifically for their planned treatment. This merge field needs to be inserted in any custom planned treatment booking template that you create.

To improve system performance by disabling the function to display the first available appointment time

This is checked by default in Configure > User Settings, under the Appointments heading, so by default the Departure Task List includes a 1st Available appointment indicator:

However, this functionality is resource-intensive, so if your system struggles to cope, you may opt to un-check this box.

When un-checked, the First available appointment indicator is replaced with a simple appointment search in the Departure Task List:

NOTE: Users with appropriate permissions can achieve the same result by enabling the Configure > Settings > patret.disable first available hyperlink option:

Summary:

If your system is performing well you need do nothing.

If your system is struggling with performance, and you opt to disable this function, de-select the Show the first available appointment time checkbox in Configure > User Settings, under the Appointments heading. You will need to do this on a per User basis.

Recall appointments are for patients who have no further planned treatments.

This configuration is only for practices that aim to book recalls immediately after treatment, before the patient leaves the premises.

What does this configuration achieve?

Patients who have no planned future treatments can be scheduled for Recalls by the Receptionist.

Dentist Recall:

Hygienist Recall:

Co-duty Recall:

To configure Treatment Completed departure tasks

1. Access the Appointment Workflow Wizard, and check Book a Recall Appointment for treatment Complete patients:

   

2. No other configuration is necessary. Click Next >.

Use this configuration to prompt the Receptionist to ask the patient for payment on invoiced work or any other outstanding balance, before the patient exits the premises.

What does this configuration achieve?

The result of this configuration is that

1. The Patient Payments configuration screen (Configure > Patient Payments) is updated:

   

2. The Receptionist will be able to Process Payments from Departure: when processing a patient's departure, the Receptionist will see a Payments screen that automatically includes the configured payments.

To configure for payment processing in the Appointment Workflow

1. Access the Appointment Workflow Wizard, and check the process a Payment checkbox:

   

2. When you click Next, you will be prompted for further details:

   

   By default, the receptionist will be prompted to process all treatments for which the patient has already been invoiced.

   Select Planned Treatment to also prompt for payment processing of planned treatments that have not yet been invoiced.

   Select Completed Treatment to also prompt for payment processing of completed treatments that have not yet been invoiced.

   
   For Invoiced Treatment, select one of two options:

   The Balance payment is based simply on what the patient owes overall (this is selected by default).

   The Open Invoice payment is based on particular invoice payments that are due, irrespective of the patient overall balance. Even if the patient balance is positive, they may still need to pay against an open invoice.

   Let's look at an example where the patient has an overall positive balance, but may still be required to pay against a particular open invoice:

   

3. Select Next or Finish.

What does this configuration achieve?

When processing patient departures, the Receptionist will be prompted to update patient contact details from an option in the Departure List:

This task relates to blank Email and/or Mobile Phone fields in the patient record. If either of these change for a patient, EXACT has no way of knowing, and will not create a task in the Departures Task List. To cover this possibility, you could configure a Custom task to "Ask patient if any contact details have changed."

IMPORTANT: The Collect Mobile prompt triggers if the SMS Mobile checkbox is unchecked (un-ticked) in the Patient File. To reduce these Collect Mobile prompts, always check this checkbox

To configure a Departure List prompt for Email Address or Mobile number

Access the Appointment Workflow Wizard, select the Email and Phone options, and select Next / Finish.

What does this configuration achieve?

When processing patient departures, the Receptionist will be prompted to complete customised tasks in the Departure List:

For example, here the receptionist is prompted to discuss current special offers:

To configure Custom Options in the Departure List:

1. Access the Appointment Workflow Wizard, and in the Departure Details screen, select Custom Options:

   

2. Click Next >

3. Depending on your configuration selections, you may need to configure other screens first, but you will come to the Custom Options screen, from which you need to select the +1 button:

   

4. When the Add Custom Option screen displays, complete the fields to create your custom task for the Receptionist to process. For example:

   

   Type a Description (up to 25 characters) and free text Notes, in a way that will be understandable when later displaying on the Departure List.

5. Select Patients by Query Template. Select a template using the arrows or lined icon buttons (the latter will allow you to create a new query, if required).

6. Select OK.

   The new custom task displays in the Custom Options window, from where you can use the buttons to Edit selected, Add another task, or Delete the selected:

   
   

7. Click Finish. This task will now appear in the Departure List.

At various points in EXACT you can select patients by means of Query Templates, which are saved queries/searches.

For example, select Patients for custom task options in the Departure List:

To select values by scrolling for Query Templates

1. Click in the blank field to activate the selection buttons

   

   You now have the option to select by scrolling up and down the list of Query templates or by creating a new Query Template.

2. To scroll for a Query template: Keep clicking the Up and Down arrows until you see the template that you require, and then click OK:

   

To create a New Query Template by Importing .CSV file:

(CSV is a comma delimited file such as a Microsoft Excel file).

1. Click the selection button (lined icon) to open the View Query Templates window.

2. Click Import, then browse for and Open the file, to have it list in the Description box window:

   

3. Click to select it, and then click OK. You will be prompted to type a Description and Notes before selecting this template into the original field

To create a New Query template:

1. Click the selection button lined icon, and then from the View Query Templates window, click the +1 button:

   

2. Type a Description for this Query template.

   We'll use a "Birthday" example for a Birthday Reminder template.

3. Select the below icon to open a Select Condition list. Select the condition (Birthday in our example) and press OK:

   

4. In the resulting Edit patient Selection window, configure the query date range, in this example to find Patients with a birthday in the coming week.

   

5. Select OK to return to the Add Query template window.

   Note: You can further customise this selection using the controls highlighted below. See To Create a New Query for more details.

   

6. Click OK > OK to return to the Custom Options screen, and then click Finish.

Clinicians or other users who have no need to view the Departure Task List in their view of the Main (Appointment) book can opt to disable this sidebar based on their User Settings.

Default configuration:

When the Appointment Workflow is enabled in Configure > Practice Settings,

... this by default enables the Departure Task List display for all Users.

To hide the Departure Task List you need to disable the default setting per user.

To disable the Departure Task List for a particular User

1. Open Configure > User Settings.

2. Select the User (in this example, "DEMO"):

   

3. Under the Appointments area, check (tick) Hide Appointment Workflow:

   

   (You will only see this checkbox if you have EXACT version 11.3 or later, and the Appointment Workflow has been enabled under Configure > Practice Settings)

4. Click the Save button at the top of the page:

   

5. NOTE: If the User is logged on, he/she will need to close and re-open the Main (Appointment) screen to see the change.
   To close: