The Appointments module is a database that stores all the appointment slots for each provider. There are several views and settings that you can set to customize how the scheduler operates. Before we actually start using the scheduler, let's review its preferences and how to change them.
While in the Appointments module select "Preferences" from the navigation list and click Go. This takes you to the Syst Prefs screen in Office Startup. Obviously, if you are already in Office Startup you can click on the light blue Syst Prefs tab!
There are several setting that you can change:
- All Slots - When you print out an appointment list, if you want all slots to print, even unfilled one, select "Yes". This simulates an appointment book. If you only want filled slots to print, as you would have with a surgical schedule, select "No".
- Days Seen - The full week view can show 5 to 7 days at one time! Your choices are:
- Mon-Fri - Shows Monday to Friday
- Mon-Sat - Shows Monday to Saturday
- Sun-Sat - Shows Sunday to Saturday
- View - There are three different ways to view your appointments on screen. Different personnel may want different views!
- Full - Shows the entire week using your Days Seen preference. This is used for that person that schedules appointments.
- Single - Shows only one day at a time. This is the best view for the doctor to view his scheduler, or the nurse how does intake! This view can also be customized if needed.
- List - This presents
the records in full list with several valuable features, such as phone
dialing. This vew is best to use for slooow connections over the phone.
- Delete Age - This field sets how many days old an appointment slot must be before it is archived into the Appts Archive database. If this field is set to zero no appointments will be archived.
- Add Missing - This is a very special feature and using its requires you to make a choice on how you want to use the software. If you want to build your schedule for many months in advance, select "No". If you want the ability to add slots one day at a time then select "Yes" (called "Single Day Build"). If you select "Yes" and you built your schedules for many months in advance there is a near 100% chance of duplicating appointments slots.
- Manual Entry - If you want to allow users to manually enter patients into an appointment slot without having to create a patient record first select "Yes". This will make it a bit more difficult to associate the appointment back to the patient's record. These patients are assigned a chart number of ".99". You can find all "unassigned" appointments by selecting Show unassigned from the Scripts menu. If there are Unassigned Appointments Found the dialog below appears and you are given a list of unassigned. To change the chart number to the correct one, simply click into the respective Chart field and enter the correct number!
- In the fields Available, Not Avail and Taken you can change the color that displays by clicking on the color you want from the Color Palette and dragging it into the correct field. If you do not like these colors, you can copy another from you favorite painting program and paste it into the field.
- List View - There are four different lists to choice from. Check the appendix for sample reports.
- Chart - When you print an appointment list, you can customize what patient identifier appears in one of the left hand columns. You can have the Chart number, Patient ID Code, or the Chart Ext field.
- Side-by-Side Screen Defaults - The Side-by-Side
view has the ability to show up to five provider's schedule for the
same day, as shown below. You select which provider you want in each
slot. More about this view in the next chapter.
