Planned Tracker Appointment More Visible

[LAL2]

I love that you have a planned tracker appointment option. It allows us to have the appointment detail ready for when the appointment needs to be made. To partner with this, we have developed a RTO (Return To Office) slip that we check off items such as : pt. name, doctor, procedure, time needed, so that patients actually call us to schedule they do so with accurate information ( we had problems with patients scheduling appointments that were inaccurate in amount of time or procedure needed) It would be handy if our OD program could print a similar "RTO appointment sheet" that we could send with the patient with their needed appt info when they are unable to schedule until later. Here is my one concern: Because the planned tracker appointment is hidden behind a chart tab, I have found with that with my staff these PT appts are "out of sight, out of mind." This causes new appts to be scheduled from scratch, while the orignal PT appointment languishes in the system. This in turn makes the "Planned Tracker Report" inaccurate because many times the appointment has been completed, but does not come off of the list due to lack of proper attachment. I then have to go through the PT list and the patients history to "clean up" the list. (time consuming) I realize that the chart is "crowded", but I would use the planned tracker option over some of the other features if given the option to substitute this and put one of the other options under a chart tab. Is this possible under the set up of OD ? Thanks for considering these ideas or enlightening me

[jordansparks]

But the planned appointment is in the appointments screen, not behind a tab:
http://www.open-dent.com/manual/apptsched.html
ALL appointments should be scheduled from a planned appointment unless they are exams, emergencies, or denture adjustments. Work more on enforcing office policy. The front desk should not be going to the Chart to schedule appointments. The Chart module is for chairside assistants. The front desk should be scheduling from the appointments module.

[LAL2]

Ok, I walked through the posting of the planned tracker appt from the appointment screen. Yes, it will be a matter of helping everyone groove a new habit, but I'm up for that because I love the planned tracker list. What would really help my staff see this appointment sitting on the appointment screen would be if it would automatically be highlighted in a BRIGHT yellow bar (it would jump out at you visually) Would that be a reasonable option?

[jordansparks]

Yes, that sounds reasonable and easy. You could add that as a feature request.

[drtech]

I added that feature to the program a year or so ago...although it is not published anywhere as far as I know so probably not very many people even know about it...

-Go to Setup | Definitions
-Click on the Prog Note Colors (because these colors were originally for the appointments included in the Prog notes and then I expanded the function to INCLUDE the pt's "Other Appointments" window also for uniformity)
-Here you can control all sorts of colors for appointments.

The way I have mine is as follows and it works very nicely:(the backgrounds mainly and you can tweak the text as well as needed if you choose dark colors)
Past Appts : Gray
Today's Appt: Light Yellow (like is the default for today's highlighted procedures)
Future Appts: Light Green (really helps to see if a pt has a future appt or not)
Broken/Unschedule Appts: Fire Engine Red
Planned Appts: Hot Pink

I think this will be exactly what you are looking for. Of course you can choose your own custom colors!

[jordansparks]

But the front desk should still not be scheduling from the Chart, no matter what colors it shows. The feature request should be for a colored bar in the Appointments window for the patient, not for the Chart module.

[drtech]

Jordan,
So you don't think the appointments should have the same colors in the progress notes and the "other appointment" window? I always thought is better for uniformity and clarity for all users to keep the same colors in all locations for the same item: they are just different places and ways to view the same appointments.

[jordansparks]

Oh, so the "other appt" window already shows those same colors. I forgot about that.

[drtech]

right... and you should be able to just use the appt module....

but in general, we do encourage all our staff to look at the chart before scheduling. That is really the only way to currently read notes for the patient and not miss something that was noted at the last visit or two. So, for efficiency of scheduling, you could only use the appt module, but if you want to make sure you read any noted info, it might be better for all to start and the chart and go from there.

Enhancement: Now to circumvent this problem of not being able to see notes withough going to the chart, I have always thought it to be a good idea to have the progress notes always show in the appointment edit window (instead of just commlog) and in the account (like it is now for FuchsOptionsOn).

******Or, I think an even better idea...*****,( i know this might take some work) I just had the idea to have a "popup" display of the chart module in a "bubble" from the appt edit window. Would this be possible?(just like you have the account module "built it" to the recall edit window) I am thinking of a bubble type window that could be accessible here and maybe when you are going through appointment lists like recall, planned appt list, unschedule list, etc...This would make it much easier to work these lists and be informed of all aspects of the pt.

[jordansparks]

I feel this is very low priority. User voting could prove me wrong. Let it get sorted out by the users in the feature request system.