Scheduling

Enjoy one of the most flexible and intuitive appointment schedulers available with the PracticeStudio scheduler. Designed as a multi-book, task and resource scheduler, many setup and runtime features allow for a variety of scheduling options.

Books

The scheduler permits a virtually unlimited number of appointment books to be established, all accessible at any time. Each book is established with time increments which may vary by book (i.e. every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes, etc.).

Resources and Tasks

Within each book, resources are created that represent the different "columns" within the book. Typically, these resources represent the practitioners, equipment, or treatment/exam rooms.

An unlimited number of tasks may be built, each corresponding with the resources that may be booked for that task. For example, an "office visit" task may be created that is used for either Dr. Jones or Dr. Smith. An additional task of "therapy" may be created that will book appointments in the "Room 4" column.

The task may also span multiple time slots with multiple resources. For example, a "procedure" task may require Dr. Jones for 30 minutes and room 1 for 30 minutes.

Color Coding and Templates

Tasks may be color coded for easily recognizable task coordination. Books may be associated with templates where the column colors and block times have a different color value.

Views

Several different views of the appointment book are available within the scheduler. The "Scheduling View" shows the appointment book with the booked appointments and the available cells. Within this view, all resources or only practitioners, equipment, or rooms may be selected for display.

Included in this view is a monthly calendar for simple "one click" navigation between dates. A "One year" calendar may also be displayed for extended time scheduling.

No Shows

The book is periodically queried for "no shows" while the scheduling view is active. When time has passed for a particular appointment and the patient has not "signed in", then the appointment is displayed in red indicating a "no show".

Appointment Booking

The booking of appointments is extremely fast and easy. Once the desired date is displayed for the book, a click on the appropriate resource/time cell will instantiate the booking process. Upon display of the booking window, the patient and the task are selected to finalize the appointment. A descriptive message concerning the appointment may also be entered. This message is always available for inquiry at a later date.

Rescheduling

Appointment times may also be changed after the initial booking by clicking and dragging the appointment from the active cell to the rescheduled cell.

Cluster Booking

When the need arises to book a large volume of appointments for a particular patient over a given period of time, the cluster booking feature fills the "booking" bill. Select the task, time frame, practitioner, equipment, room, and the desired days of the week to book the appointment series.

Inquiries

A wide array of inquiries are available for each book. Some of these include appointments affected by cancellations, no shows, or walk ins. Patient inquiries show details about each specific appointment as well as listing all future appointments that are scheduled.

Resource inquiries show all booked and available times for a particular resource (i.e. provider) while at the same time showing the task associated with the appointment.

Reporting

Several different reports are provided including No Show / Cancellation Reports, Sign In Report, Appointment Reminders, Appointment Schedule by Resource, Appointments by Patient, and Appointment Letters.

Recalls

Patient recalls can be established in two different manners. First, a scheme may be based on a particular task. For example, after an office visit, send patient recalls (request for new appointment) after 6 months and then every month for four additional points (if no appointment is currently scheduled for the task). Secondly an "on demand" recall letter may be printed which analyzes all patients who need to be recalled based on a particular task.

The recall letters are "template based"; thus, the format may be tailored to specific clinic requirements.