Appointment Book Pro is available for all cloud customers and can be added to an existing package for an on-premise customer. This article focuses on the functionality of this module. To see the YouTube of the same material go here.
Getting Started
Once the module is activated in your software, you will want to create views of the appointment book to enable you to see different combinations of your appointment book. For example, you might want to be able to see several providers side by side to do their scheduling. Alternatively, you might want to be able to see a certain provider and a certain exam room at the same time to make sure that the provider’s favorite exam room is available for an appointment.
To do this, you will go to the bottom right-hand side of the screen:
The first feature to be considered is the View function, in this screenshot, it shows several different choices of views:
These Views can be created by selecting the current view and Manage Views:
Then you select Create View:
You then name your new View:
You will then go to the “Add” Button:
You will then get the option to choose either a Resource or a Provider, this screenshot shows a Provider drop-down:
Then the provider is selected and the Save button is clicked:
After all Providers and Resources that need to be seen in this view have been selected, the User Access can be chosen if desired. If you feel only certain personnel should be allowed to use certain views, Enable Security and choose those users:
Time Interval can be selected from this screen as well:
Once you have made all changes to this View, select the Save button:
Views can also be Edited and Deleted by Clicking on them and choosing that option:
In this same area, the layout of the calendar can be changed from daily to weekly or monthly:
Templates
Templates can be setup to block off times in the calendar, such as days the office is closed, lunch times or other times that providers are not available. To create and edit templates, the Template Mode box needs to be checked:
After the Template Mode box is checked, then choose to Add Template:
The new pop-up screen will look like this. The marked fields will be necessary to create a good template:
Description: Such as Lunch, Hospital Rounds or other definition as to the reason for the calendar restriction.
Date: This is the beginning date for the template.
Time: This is the beginning time for the template
Length: This is the amount of time in minutes that the template will block off in the schedule for this event.
Color: A color that will show in the calendar needs to be chosen here.
Recurrence: The length of the recurrence – such as for every day until a specific end date.
Appointment Restrictions:
Do not schedule appointments at this time will stop any appointments from being scheduled at this time unless it is specifically overridden.
Do not allow new patients for this time will keep any new patients from being scheduled at this time.
Allow all colors – you can choose specific colors to be allowed during this time slot.
Below are two lunch hours and one other period of time that will not allow for appointments to be scheduled. The fourth slot only allows for maroon (new patient) appointments to be booked during that time.
Once a restriction has been created, you will receive warnings when trying to schedule in these time blocks:
Once a template has been created, it can be copied and pasted into other columns and edited if necessary.
Email Reminders
Another feature of Appointment Book Pro is the ability to send email reminders from the scheduler screen. This feature will allow you to send email reminders to certain patients or every patient in the view that you are in when you choose to send the email. This is a area that you will want to contact our help-desk for assistance setting it up correctly.
You can choose to send an email reminder for a single patient or for all patients in the view that you currently have on your screen. If you have a day selected, such as above, the four patients shown would all receive an email. If you have chosen a weekly or monthly view, all patients that are shown on the screen will be emailed. Alternatively, you can select patient individually to send out reminders.
Setup/Customizing Emails
You would want to customize your email to your practice prior to using the system. Also, a certain amount of setup is required by our Support Team so that you can use the feature. Setup for the email reminders is done through Set up the Practice from the Home Page:
Once you click that option, you will receive the following screen, once you click on the Email Setup tab:
This screen is an area that you will want to call our support team at 800-619-7597 Option 2 to have them do the setup for you. They will remote into your screen and do the work for you. You will be able to choose the verbiage that you wish to have in the Message area and it can be changed as necessary.
Program Preferences
Additional changes can be made to the scheduler by clicking on File>Program Preferences:
Once you are in the Program Preferences, there are several ways to customize your schedule from here. The business days and hours can be indicated here, and they will be reflected on the calendar. The time interval such as 15, 30 or 60 minutes between appointments is chosen here. You can also indicate how spread out the schedule is by adjusting the Time Height. The use of colors on the calendar – either bright or pastel colors is indicated here as well.
You can also tell the schedule not to accept appointments further than a certain number of days in advance, to hide the patient names on the schedule and only show a chart number or show the patient’s last name first. These are preferences that you will have to make for your practice.
The last thing you can do in this screen is to add custom days that the office is closed. By clicking on Add, it will give you a screen to add the date and a description:
Once you have added a date to the calendar, it will look like this when you try to book into that month:
Then the date will be completely grayed out and give you a warning about setting appointments on that day. It will allow you to set appointments if the warnings are ignored.
One last feature will allow you to make a note at the top of the calendar on a daily basis. By clicking in the white space above the schedule:
You can also right click in the line and change the font and color of the text:
These are all features that are available to you in Appointment Book Pro. If you are interested in adding this module to your current subscription, please contact our sales department at 800-619-7597 Option 1.
If you have questions regarding this functionality of TotalMD, please contact our support or training departments at 800-613-7597 Option 2 for Support or Option 3 for Training. If you would like a printable copy of this article, please contact Training at Option 3.