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Alternate Appointment Tracking 



Summary:

Alternate Appointment Tracking is a new feature built into the ABELDent product permitting the office to efficiently track "Short Notice" patient requests. Staff can track patients with or without pre-booked appointments who prefer a more convenient time slot. Appointments and contacts can be designated "Short Notice" and detailed scheduling preferences are recorded. At their discretion, staff can view the Short Notice List based on various user defined criteria locating any Short Notice appointments and contacts which meet this criteria. Appointments can be booked directly from the displayed Short Notice List.


Steps:

Mark Contact as Short Notice
Mark the Contact as Short Notice - attribute?
New? How? Where? Also, can you tell that a contact is marked to appear on the short notice list by looking at the contact in the appt tab.
 Enter Patient Scheduling Preferences
How do you get to this screen?
Specific to this patient's appointment request, preferred day(s) of the week, preferred time range(s), preferred date range, preferred provider and priority are recorded. A free form comment area is also available. Do they have to specify a preferred provider??
Preferences are validated by the system as follows:

  • The preferred date range must be valid
  • The preferred date range is a required field
  • The preferred date range must be from the current accounting date onward
  • The preferred days must be within scheduler working days
  • The preferred times must be within scheduler working hours
  • The preferred provider must be a provider in the provider file

Scheduling preferences for a short notice contact may be modified from the Contact Manager, the Patient's file or in the Short Notice List. (How??)

 View the Short Notice List for Short Notice Contacts
To Launch ..
The Short Notice List is usually launched upon result of deletion/cancellation of an appointment. So they come up and then are filtered, wouldn't it be faster the other way around, like the contact manager works? Are appointments and contacts listed together, order? The system displays the Short Notice List sorting contacts by preferred provider, contact date and work to do. Staff may specify further search criteria using any one of the following:

  • Contact date only
  • Contact time units only
  • Work to do only
  • Priority
  • Patient Name
  • Appointment time only?
  • Appointment provider only?
  • Preferred provider only
  • Appointment column only
  • Preferred day
  • Preferred date
  • Preferred time
  • The following information is displayed for each short notice contact:
  • Patient ID
  • Patient Name
  • Best Phone Number what if best not specified, what gets displayed??
  • Location of Best Phone Number
  • Contact Date
  • Contact Provider
  • Contact Time Units
  • Preferred day(s) if any
  • Preferred time(s) if any
  • Preferred date range
  • Work to do
  • Scheduling preference comment if any
  • Priority

Urgent priority contacts are highlighted. The system displays all outstanding short notice contacts, even those with a contact date prior to the current accounting date. Do they ever go away??
Book Appointment from Short Notice List
From the Short Notice List, the Staff may select a suitable contact to fill the open time slot. The system books the new appointment into the selected time slot. The system then removes the contact information from the short notice list for short notice contacts and the patient file.
If the new appointment provider, the contact provider and the usual provider which usual provider are they looking at hyg or dentist??? are not all the same then the system warns the staff and gives the option to proceed or cancel. If the new time slot is earlier than the time calculated using the last recall date and the recall interval for the patient, then the system displays a descriptive warning and gives the option to proceed or cancel. This only needs to be checked for rc contacts. If the contact's time units are greater than the available time slot then the system double books. Msg?? If canceled the contact remains on the short notice list.
 Maintenance of Contacts on the Short Notice List
If a contact that appears on the short notice list is deleted or the short notice attribute of a contact is turned off (how?), then ABELDent will remove the contact from the Short Notice List along with its scheduling preferences. (explain exactly where a bit better)
If staff no longer want a contact to appear on the short notice list, they can turn off the short notice attribute. The system will remove the contact from the Short Notice List along with its scheduling preferences.
How do short notice contacts appear on existing contact lists?
What if someone is looking at the short notice list and a contact or appointment that is on that list is deleted or moved .., do they get an error like in the contact manager "cannot reread contact"
 Maintaining the Short Notice List from booked Appointments
 
Staff can track patients who have booked appointments but prefer another, more suitable, earlier time slot if it becomes available.
Mark Appointment as Short Notice
Mark the Appointment as Short Notice - attribute?
New? How? Where?
Also, can you tell an appt is marked short notice in appts tab? On scheduler?

 Enter Patient Scheduling Preferences
How do you get to this screen?
Specific to this patient's appointment request, preferred day(s) of the week, preferred time range(s), preferred date range, preferred provider and priority are recorded. A free form comment area is also available.
Preferences are validated by the system as follows:

  • the preferred date range must be valid
  • the preferred date range is a required field
  • the preferred date range must be from the current accounting date onward
  • the preferred days must be within scheduler working days
  • the preferred times must be within scheduler working hours
  • the preferred provider must be a provider in the provider file

View the Short Notice List for booked Appointments
To Launch ..
The Short Notice List is usually launched upon result of deletion/cancellation of an appointment. The system displays the Short Notice List sorting appointments by preferred provider, appointment date and work to do. Is this a separate list from the short notice for contacts, isn't it putting contacts and appointments together? Which comes first? Is this appointment date actual or preferred? Staff may specify further search criteria using any one of the following:

  • Appointment date only
  • Appointment time units only
  • Work to do only
  • Priority
  • Patient Name
  • Appointment time only
  • Appointment provider only
  • Appointment column only
  • Preferred provider only
  • Preferred day
  • Preferred date
  • Preferred time
  • The following information is displayed for each appointment is:
  • Patient ID
  • Patient Name
  • Best Phone Number
  • Location of Best Phone Number
  • Appointment Date
  • Appointment Column
  • Appointment Provider
  • Appointment Time
  • Appointment Time Units
  • Preferred day(s) if any
  • Preferred time(s) if any
  • Preferred date range
  • Work to do
  • Scheduling preference comment if any
  • Priority

Appointments marked as Urgent priority are highlighted. The system displays all short notice appointments, even if the appointment date is prior to the current accounting date.
Why would they want that? Why wouldn't they automatically drop off the list if appt is past?
 Book Appointment from Short Notice List
From the Short Notice List, the Staff may select a suitable appointment to fill the open time slot. The system moves the original appointment to the new time slot and makes an appropriate notation in the appointment notes in the patient's file in indicate that this appointment has been moved from its original slot to the new slot. The appointment note contains detailed information on the original slot for the appointment in case the staff must undo their action. Eg?
If the new appointment provider, the old appointment provider and the usual provider is this the usual dentist or hygienist??? are not all the same then the system warns the staff and gives the option to proceed or cancel. If the new time slot is earlier than the time calculated using the last recall date and the recall interval for the patient, then the system displays a descriptive warning and gives the option to proceed or cancel. This check would only be necessary if its an rc contact, hopefully that is taken into consideration. If the appointment's time units are greater than the available time slot then the system double books. Is there a Msg?? A conflict occurs if another staff books an appointment into the desired slot as an appointment is being moved from the short notice list. In the case of such a conflict, the system displays a warning (get actual message??) and gives the option to proceed by adding one minute to the appointment time, thereby double booking or, cancel the move and keep the appointment on the short notice list. If the procedure of moving the appointment to the new time slot is canceled, the appointment remains in its original time slot and also remains on the short notice list.
Maintenance of Appointments on the Short Notice List
While viewing the short notice list, staff may choose to remove all past appointments (based on current accounting date) from the list. The system displays a confirmation message which includes today's accounting date (as a precaution against accidental removal of future appointments if the accounting date is mistakenly or temporarily set into the future) before proceeding with the removal of the past appointments. After confirmation, the system permanently removes all the appointments from the short notice list with an appointment date earlier that the current accounting date.
If a booked appointment is canceled/deleted and this appointment was also on the short notice list, ABELDent removes the appointment from the short notice list. (how???)
If a booked appointment is moved and this appointment was also on the short notice list, ABELDent displays a message and gives the option for the staff to continue with the move or cancel. If the staff continues with the move, ABELDent prompts the staff if they want to keep this appointment on the short notice list (as is), modify the scheduling preferences of the appointment or remove it from the Short Notice List.
At any time while viewing the Short Notice List, staff can remove an appointment from the Short Notice List without affecting the actual booked appointment.
Installation ??
Is there a separate install or is this part of regular ABELDent install?
Is there a separate .exe or is it built into abel.exe
 
Definition of New Tables and New Fields, New File Relationships
Are there any new tables? New fields? New relationships?
Is the information gathered each time the Short Notice List is launched? Is that not going to take a long time? Is it stored anywhere?
Can more than 1 person launch the Short Notice List at a time or are there considerations similar to Contact manager where it may be launched by >1 person but same search criteria must be used?


Product (s): ABELDent
Category: Appointment Scheduler
Classification: Public
Date Created:
Created by:
 

Keywords: Alternate, Appointment, Tracking, tracker, scheduler, scheduling, short, notice