This is the workflow to book in an unscheduled appointment for a new or existing patient who has not booked through online bookings.
Use the Timeline if you already have a date in mind or to fill gaps in the appointment book. Use the quick action if you'd like Principle to calculate the next available appointment slot.
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Using the +New Appointment quick action.
1) At the top of any page, click into the Search bar and a drop-down menu should appear. Select the quick action '+ New Appointment'.
2) The 'Schedule Appointment' page should appear. Enter in all the mandatory Patient Details. If they are an existing patient, type in their name, and the rest of their details should auto-fill.
Mandatory details:
Name, Date of birth, Email
Mobile phone: Enter the primary contact number here. You can save an additional number in their Appointment Notes.
Gender
Referrer: Enter a referrer if applicable, this can help with reporting and marketing.
3) Click Next and if new, the patient's file will also be created.
4) Triage the severity of the issue.
Head over to the Appointment Notes section on the right hand side of the page and write down your observations.
5) Enter in the Appointment Details. This is a search query and will help to find a suitable appointment.
Practice: If there are multiple locations, please select the correct location for this appointment. Otherwise, select 'Any'. Click to learn to configure your practice.
Practitioner: If the patient has requested a specific practitioner, select them from the drop-down menu of practitioners, otherwise select 'Any'.
Treatment: Select the most appropriate appointment from the drop-down list. You can enter any other appointment details in the 'Appointment Notes' section. Click to learn how to configure treatment types.
Appointment duration: The appointment duration should automatically be populated when treatment is selected, however, it can be adjusted if needed. An alert will show up on the appointment if the appointment duration is too short once it has been saved.
This information is used to find you the most suitable appointments through smart search.
6) Click next.
7) In 'Select a Time', add in additional time parameters if the patient can only come between certain dates or times. This will filter down the appointment search query:
Time from/to: If the patient can only make it from or to a certain time, select that time from the drop-down list. These times will be configured beforehand and will be based on the opening hours of the practice as well as the configured time slot interval. This is an optional field.
8) A list of appointment slots will be generated based on your search query.
Score: Use the 'Score' column as a guide when selecting an appointment as this will calculate the score of all the appointment slots and will show you the most suitable spot. The selected appointment will be shown in the big text at the bottom of the list of appointment slots.
Appointment Context (Eyeball): Click on the eyeball icon to see what events are happening around the appointment option.
Pro Tip: always have the Timeline open in a seperate tab to confirm that you are happy with the selected timeslot.
Sorting: You can sort appointment slots from each column shown: date, time, from now, duration, score, brand, practitioner. Click for either ascending or descending order.
Select your appointment.
Note: if it is an EMERGENCY APPOINTMENT, you'll want to book through the timeline instead.
9) Click Next.
10) By default, all patients get added to the Waitlist. This is to ensure that patients have the opportunity to be offered an earlier appointment as well as having a database of patients to select from when filling in gaps in the day.
11) Click Next.
12) Notice the Tags field in step 6 . You can use Tags to include additional information for an appointment. Tags can be equipment related such as CEREC or Happy Gas.
Start typing the tag or click into the field to see previously created tags. Select the tag by either clicking it or typing the name and pressing enter.
12) Do a final 'Confirmation' of the appointment. Check the details that have been entered and selected.
12) Click Save. Your patient is now booked into an appointment.