Treatment Plan Procedures and Status of Appointments

[cneelley]

I notice there is a change in how procedures are attached to appointments. Version 5.0.18.

Jordan, could you please explain how things work now, as regards procedures attached to appointments with the various status labels.

Thanks, Dr. Neelley

[jordansparks]

It should be just a little more intuitive than it was before. There is hardly any difference from before. All that we did was to remove one specific situation that was a source of annoyance for some users. The frustrating situation was when you were trying to attach a TP procedure to an appointment, but it wasn't available in the list. The reason it wasn't available was because it was already attached to some other appointment. But it would take time to find the other appointment and detach it. So now you can see it in order to "steal" it from the other appointment. That's all.

[cneelley]

Okay, I think I like that feature. So no matter what the status of the appointment, scheduled, broken, unscheduled list, etc, we can "steal the procedures" to make a new one?

Here's another question, I have a situation where a patient scheduled an appointment and then broke it one hour prior to appointment. I like leaving those appointments in place in the appointment book and show them broken, for our records. However, we were able to book another patient and put it in their place. So now, I must move that broken appointment some place, so I can book the new patient. How do you suggest I handle this?

Dr. Neelley

[cneelley]

Okay, I think I like that feature. So no matter what the status of the appointment, scheduled, broken, unscheduled list, etc, we can "steal the procedures" to make a new one?

Here's another question, I have a situation where a patient scheduled an appointment and then broke it one hour prior to appointment. I like leaving those appointments in place in the appointment book and show them broken, for our records. However, we were able to book another patient and put it in their place. So now, I must move that broken appointment some place, so I can book the new patient. How do you suggest I handle this?

Dr. Neelley

[jordansparks]

We currently do not recommend leaving broken appointments on the schedule for more than a few hours. Our system simply isn't designed for that. The "broken" appointment is tracked as an adjustment in the Account module, even if $0.

[Jorgebon]

In our office we mark the appointment broken so that it will show in the progress notes, then we delete the appointment and add a note in the appointment module at the same time and date that says "Patient missed appt". It will show with the patient's picture just like an appointment and since the color is different than a regular appointment, you can easily see how many people missed their appointments and when.
Jorge Bonilla, DMD

[DavidWolf]

In my office we created an appointment column called cancelled. We move the cancelled/'missed appointment to that column which shows the appointment in the schedule but takes it out of the active column. This allows the front desk to see the appointments in the cancelled column all day and work on rescheduling them. At the end of the day whatever is left gets sent to the unscheduled list.