Appointment grouping for online scheduling will allow users to limit the number of specific appointment types that can be scheduled simultaneously. For example, most clinics only want to schedule 1 of the following appointment purposes at a time:
New Patient
Day 2/ROF
Re-exam
However, they may want to allow 3 of the following appointment purposes simultaneously:
Wellness adjustment
Adjustment
Laser
The grouping feature will make this possible, while keeping new patient appointments separate from adjustments.
Stand Alone Feature
Stand alone feature ignores any appointment type outside the stand alone group. This is perfect if you have appointments that only should consider certain types of appointments. Often where there are multiple providers or team members that share a column for appointments.
Appointments can be enabled or not enabled within the group, and it will look at all those appointment types.
First, add appointment types
Create group and select ‘stand alone’ feature
Drag appointment type to stand alone group
Enable the appointment types you wish to offer for online scheduling. All appointment types within the group will be considered when looking for an available time, all others will be ignored.
FAQ
Q: When I have multiple appointment types selected, it does not work the way I want? I use a room view.
A: When you have multiple appointment types selected over a longer range, it is impossible to see which appointment type takes up what part of the schedule.
In this example, a patient may take 90 minutes on the schedule, but on the back end this is what it looks like. Different appointment types are not set at different times. They all start simultaneously on the back end.
Prep-Time Appointments
Perfect if an office wants appointment reminders to remind a patient to show up early for their appointment, while making the initial portion of their appointment remain available for scheduling.
Example, if you have a 45 minute appointment, but want the patient to arrive 15 minutes early, you would have a 60 minute appointment with 15 minutes of prep time. That will send the appointment reminder 15 minutes before the appointment, while leaving the initial 15 minutes available for the appointments.
Prep time duration is the time allocated at the start of an appointment for preparation. It is not part of the actual appointment duration and is ignored when calculating provider availability. Example, you have a 90 minute appointment, but a 30 minute prep time. Online scheduling will ignore the first 30 minutes of this appointment.