Appointment

This window is used to create and edit an Appointment.

The fields are:
Customer - the customer - this is a mandatory field
Patient - the patient - this is an optional field
Appointment Type - the appointment type. The available types and their default duration are set via Administration|Organisation|Schedule and hence selecting an appointment type will automatically set the End Time.
Start Time - the date and time that the appointment will start
End Time -the date and time that the appointment will end. If the practice operates on a 24 hour basis, you can create the appointment to run across the midnight boundary - ie start 23:00 on 3/7/13 and end at 00:30 on 4/7/13.  For multi-day (such as Boarding) appointments, you can enter a relative date such as 7d and this will set the end time to 7 days after the start time. (Note that using relative dates normally sets a date relative to the current date - in this case it is relative to the appointment start date.)
Duration - the appointment duration, expressed in days, hours and minutes.
Repeat - determines the appointment recurrence. See Repeating Appointments below.
Reason - the reason for the appointment - the available reasons are set using Administration|Lookups|Visit Reason. Note that this will be placed into the Visit Reason field when the appointment is checked-in. Note that if you key in something (say x) and press enter, you will be shown all reasons containing 'x', eg Desexing, Discuss X-Ray, and X-Ray - ie the search is "contains 'x'" rather than "starts with 'x'".
Notes - any pertinent notes
Clinician - the clinician - this is an optional field
Status - the status can be one of (in logical order) Pending, In Progress, Checked-In, Admitted, Billed, Completed or Cancelled
Author - the user that created the appointment

Note that normally both the status and the completed date/time are updated by the system's workflow processing when you use the Consult (sets status In Progress) and Check-Out (sets status Completed and the Completed date/time) buttons on the Work List screen, and Complete/Finalise (sets status Billed) button on the Invoice screen.

The two status settings not set automatically by the workflow processing are Cancelled and Admitted. You set Cancelled to show that an appointment has been cancelled. Admitted can be used to indicate that the patient has been admitted to hospital.

Repeating Appointments

Appointments can be made to repeat one or more times, to form a series of appointments. Each appointment in the series:

  • has the same details as the first appointment
  • can be edited independently of the series

This can be used to:

  • schedule a follow-up appointment
  • create blocking appointments. These are used to prevent other appointments being scheduled (e.g. for internal meetings or time off)

Repeat Options

Appointments can be made to repeat:

  • Daily
    • Every day
    • On weekdays
    • Every N days
    • Every Sunday...Saturday
  • Weekly
    • Every Week
    • Every N weeks
  • Monthly
    • Every month
    • Every N months
    • On the first..fifth or last Sunday...Saturday every N months
    • On the 1..31 or last day(s) every N months 
  • Yearly
    • Every year
    • Every N years
    • On the 1..31 January...December every N years
    • On the first..fifth or last Sunday...Saturday of January...December every N years

Appointments repeat until a specified date, or number of times. If you use 'until date' you can use the relative date facility - eg 0ye will set the end of the current year, and 6me will set the end of the 6th month ahead.

Restrictions

  • at most only 364 recurring appointments can be scheduled (i.e. for a total of 365 in a series)
  • if an appointment is set to repeat on a day that is not available, it is skipped. E.g specifying a monthly repeat on the 31st of the month will skip all months without 31 days.

 

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