Changing an appointment (rescheduling the date and time or attendees)

Article author
Colin Rixom
  • Updated

What's the context?

You may need to make changes to an upcoming appointment to the date, time or attendees.

What is the purpose of the article?

This article outlines:

Before you start...

It's important to note that:

  • Rules about rescheduling set up in Billing Rules (via a particular type of Cancellation Charges rule) can impact charges applied to rescheduled appointments
  • An appointment cannot have its schedule changed if
    • The appointment has already been cancelled
    • 'Did not arrive' has already been recorded for the appointment (shown with a red background in Clinician schedules)
    • The arrival of the patient for the appointment has already been recorded (shown with green or blue background in Clinician schedules)

Steps to record a change to an appointment (e.g. to reschedule the date and time)

To record a change to the date and time of an appointment:

1. Navigate to the appointment

1.1 Either through Start > Find Patient > Patient record > Appointments section 

1.2 Or via the Side by side Schedules (via clicking on the Meddbase logo and choosing Schedule from the menu)

2. Select the appointment to be changed

1_-_Select_the_appointment_to_be_changed.png

3. In the Appointment Home page, click the option Change date, time, attendees or notes within the Actions pane

Select_change_date_time_attendees_notes_action_in_appointment_home

The Appointment setup page is displayed showing the current schedule and attendee(s) for the appointment.

To continue to change the date and time:

4. Select the required date via the calendar in the bottom right of the screen

5. Input the required Start Time

Appointment_setup_page_-_annotated_to_show_selection_of_date_and_input_of_time

6. Make further changes as required

7. Click on Save in the top-left of the page

Unless you click on Save, the appointment changes will not be saved.

8. Where advised that new booking alerts will be sent, click on Yes

The process of making the change to the appointment is complete.

What is the effect of changing the appointment?

There are a few effects that are noted below:

  • Where the date and/or time is changed, this is reflected in the Schedules for clinicians
  • Where the attendees are changed, this is reflected in the Schedules for clinicians
    • For clinicians that are added as attendees, the appointment appears in their schedule(s)
    • For clinicians that are de-selected as attendees, the appointment no longer appears in their schedule(s)
  • Where a booking confirmation was ticked, a message will be sent to the patient by way of confirmation

What are the options and features available when changing an appointment?

There is a range of features and options available when making a change to an appointment. These are identified in the annotated screenshot below and explained in the table underneath.

Annotated_diagram_of_the_Appointment_setup_page

No. Explanation
1. 

This lists the patient and attendees with ticks next to their names.

It also shows further clinical users that can be selected as attendees; as well as the specialism.

Clinicians that are ticked to be attendees are shown with a bright horizontal yellow bar representing their schedule. Clinicians that are not ticked as attendees are shown with dull yellow bar representing their schedule.
2.

Shows the Start Time for the appointment. This can be manually input in the format hh:mm. If you manually drag the red vertical bar (5) to the required slot, the Start Time automatically updates.
3. The bright blue bars represent slots that are already booked for attending clinicians.
4. The faded red vertical bar shows where an appointment was booked prior to changing the Start Time.
5. The bright red vertical bar shows the current slot for the appointment. This bar can be manually dragged to adjust the Start Time.
6. The calendar which can be used to navigate through months to select a different date for a rescheduled appointment.
7.

A Reason drop-down list for which a selection is made to explain why a change is being made.

These are based on Appointment Amendment Reasons which are set via Admin > Common Catalogues.
8. Any charges set up in Billing rules which may lead to additional charges that the payer may incur for the change to the appointment.
9. When ticked, Send Booking Confirmation will send a confirmation message to the patient in respect of the change to the appointment.
10. The Save button which needs to be selected to commit any changes for the appointment.

You may also be interested in...

As well as marking that a patient 'Did Not Arrive', you may be interested in the following articles

Review date

This article was last updated on 5th December 2024