How to approve online appointments

Our Online Booking module gives your patients the opportunity to book their appointments online, at their convenience; they won't have to wait to call during working hours or for a callback from your staff. This relieves your staff of some pressure as well, as the volume of calls will decrease and they'll have a lower stress environment because of it.

When an online booking is made, the appointment itself is not linked to a patient file from your database. This is because you may have multiple patient files with the same name, or the patient may not exist in your database yet. In order for the appointment to be linked to a patient file, it has to be approved by a user. This article will go through a few scenarios:

1. Existing patients
2. New patients
3. Duplicate patient files
4. Incorrect matches

Existing patients

One of the easiest types of appointment approvals comes when the patient has entered their details correctly and the system finds a single match, and all you have to do is approve the appointment. Here's how to do it.

1. Select the online appointment and click on Approve.
   
   Online appointments which need approval can be distinguished by the yellow "globe" icon in the appointment block.
   
   
   
2. Select the matching patient file by clicking on select.
   
   If you hover your mouse cursor over the question mark (a), you will see the details of that patient file. You can do this to verify that the booking details match the patient file.
   
   
   
3. Confirm the appointment details and click on Approve Appointment.
   
   
   
   
4. The globe icon in the patient's appointment block is now blue.
   
   This signifies that the appointment has been approved and is linked to a patient file from the database.
   
   

New patients

When a new patient makes an online booking, you will have to create a file for them in your database in order to successfully approve the appointment. Here's how to do it.

1. Select the online appointment and click on Approve.
   
   
   
   
2. Click on Create Patient.
   
   
   
   
3. Verify the patient's details and click on Create Patient.
   
   
   
   
4. Confirm the appointment details and click on Approve Appointment.
   
   

Duplicate patient files

Duplicate patient files are unavoidable. Sometimes a simple miscommunication or misunderstanding can result in multiple patient files for the same person. Our system does not differentiate between duplicate files, so a user must do this. Here's how to do it.

1. Select the online appointment and click on Approve.
   
   
   
   
2. Select the correct patient file by clicking on select.
   
   If you hover your mouse cursor over the question mark (a), you will see the details of that patient file. You can do this to verify which file is the correct one out of the matches. If there are duplicate files, you may wish to deactivate/delete one or more of them.
   
   
   
3. Verify the appointment details and click on Approve Appointment.
   
   

Incorrect matches

Our Online Booking module uses the patient's name and date of birth in order to find a match in your database. Patients may sometimes have multiple names, multiple ways to spell their names or may have changed their names. In these cases, the system would not be able to find the correct patient file when it comes to approving an online booking. Here's how to do it manually.

1. Select the online appointment and click on Approve.
   This patient (Amy) has changed her surname. The person making the booking (Ben) was not aware that the last time Amy was seen, she was still using her maiden name.
   
   
   
2. Click on Search Patient.
   
   
   
   
3. Run a search for the patient and then click on the patient's name.
   
   Running a search with the first name and date of birth only will broaden the results. You may have to try a few search combinations before you successfully find the patient file that you were looking for. Here we can see that the patient was using her maiden name when her file was saved in the database.
   
   
   
4. Confirm the appointment details and click on Approve Appointment.