How to set-up and book Telemedicine Appointments (Twilio)

What's the context?

Meddbase integrates with Twilio video to deliver a simple and smooth Telemedicine appointment experience for all participants, both clinicians and patients.
All underpinned by the flexible appointment management tools within Meddbase to schedule and provide joining instructions.

What is the purpose of the article?

This article outlines the key features you have available to schedule Telemedicine appointments using Twilio:

• Activating the Video calls & Telemedicine chargeable feature
• Setting up Twilio telemedicine integration
• Setting up Telemedicine appointment types in Meddbase
• Making Telemedicine Appointments available for Booking in Meddbase
• Booking Telemedicine appointments in Meddbase

How to join and use Telemedicine Video features is explained in the separate article How to join Telemedicine appointments and use Twilio video features - for Clinicians.

Activating the Video calls & telemedicine feature

There is a one-off group of set-up activities you’ll need to carry out, in conjunction with our Meddbase to Customer Services team.
First of all, you'll need to ensure the Telemedicine feature is activated. To do this:

1. Select Admin from the Start Page

2. Select Configuration

3. Go to Chargeable Feature and tick the box for Video Calls & Telemedicine

Setting up Twilio telemedicine integration

Next, the one-off Twilio telemedicine account configuration will need to be completed. To do this, please contact your account manager (or email accountmanagement@meddbase.com). 

They will then organise the work for our internal teams to set up Telemedicine integration for each of your chambers where it is needed.

Setting up Telemedicine appointment types in Meddbase

To do this:

1. Select Admin from the Start Page

2. Then in the Admin panel, select Appointment Admin

3. Create an appointment type with the relevant characteristics as described in detail in Creating Appointment Types

4. Ensure the Telemedicine Type value is set as required from the list in the Telemedicine Tab

5. Configure the Telemedicine confirmation email message field on the same Telemedicine tab

For reference, our standard template text is shown below.

This telemedicine confirmation email is key to the process. Since the code in this template {Appointment.TelemedicineConnection} is key to sending the telemedicine link to the patient to enable them to join.

6. Then Save the changes

Making Telemedicine appointments available for booking

From here, to make the Telemedicine Appointment available:

1. Set-up the Price List in Billing rules to include the Telemedicine appointment type – As explained in the article Setting up Price lists

2. Additionally, where you want patients to be able to self-booking, add the appointment type to a Patient Self Book rule – As explained in the article Adding a Patient Self-book rule

3. Add the price list to a charge band – As explained in the article Adding a Price List to a Charge band

Booking an appointment

This process is similar to other appointment bookings as described in the article

• Booking an appointment using Slot Finder
• Booking an appointment using the Side by Side Scheduler

The key action in the process is to ensure that the Telemedicine option is ticked in the Book appointment screen when making the booking.

This will then send the appointment confirmation with the correct email and the joining link for the patient.
It will also enable the clinician to join the telemedicine appointment.

Review date

This article was last updated on 9 February 2022 in the context of Meddbase version 1.248.0.37267.