Chapter 4
•
All appointment info entered/saves in Scheduling
Module
•
Book Application: schedule, reschedule, and cancel
(appt. and meetings)
Book Appointments
• Building on Chapter 3
• Common methods of booking appointments
• Phone call
• When patient checking out from an office visit (OV)
• Verbal and nonverbal communication important, good phone skills
• Schedule moduleàbook tab (application): patient and non-patient
appointments (meetings) • Three methods:
• Directly in Book application
• Using Find: search for next available appt. time based on appt-type
• Using Force: allows to double book or book during different appt-type slot
• Enter a CC from list of favorites or manually type it in
Reschedule & Cancel
Appointments
•
Two ways to reschedule appt:
•
Book application
•
Find button
•
Activity 4-4, 4-5 in workbook
•
Upcoming appt. are canceled in the History
application
•
Click on appt. you wish to cancel and select View Appt.
and then cancel it from Appt. Detail window that
appears
Non-Patient Appointments
•
Meetings and out-of-office times (vacation, training)
•
Scheduling module
à
Book application
Add Patient to Wait List
• Patients who would like an appt. sooner than their currently scheduled
appt.
• Patient must have a future appt. scheduled in order add to wait list
• When adding to wait list, you must provide appt. type, provider, location
• EMR will flag available appt. that match the criteria
• Several places to complete this
• Book appàscheduling mini-menu
• Boo appàbook appt. window
• Action menus in the appointment list
• Appointments tab in Clinical Today
• Managed under Home moduleàDashboard tabàWait list; from there you
can reschedule a patient’s appt. and also remove patient from the list • Activity 4-8 in Workbook
Daily Schedule
•
Month Application (in Scheduling module)
• Displays a glance of the number of appt. scheduled for each day of a particular month
•
Calendar Display
• Under Month app.
• Gray days-provider unavailable
• Allow you to view appt. in the format of a small date book calendar
• Shows appt. time, patient’s name, ID number, appt. type, duration, CC
• Can be generated for multiple providers for either one day or one week
Family
•
When multiple family members want to book appt. on
the same day
•
Scheduling moduleàFamily app (tab)
•
Helpful in a pediatric office as multiple patients may be
linked with one responsible party
•
Generates one statement for all patients linked to the
responsible party
•
Can also view upcoming appt. for all family members
that are linked together
Advanced Application
•
Enable booking appt. in accordance with
predetermined parameters established by the practice
•
Prevents overbooking and scheduling conflicts
•
Multi-resource appointment: requires two or more
resources in 1 visit; see the provider and also have an
ultrasound
•
Can also reschedule and cancel existing appt. here
Recalls
• Reminders to patients that an appointment needs to be booked rather than scheduling a future appt.
• Can generate letters for any recall that is tracked in the EMR • Manually link an appt. to recalls when booking the appt.; in the
case where a patient recall already exists and pt. schedules an appt. for the same type as the existing recall
• Once recall is linked, it becomes inactive rather than open; but should the pt. cancel the appt., the recall becomes open again • Activity 4-9 in workbook
History
•
EMR maintains a detailed history of all
appointments, including those that are canceled or
rescheduled
•
Scheduling module
à
History tab
•
4 different sections
•
Pending Appt.
•
Previous Appt.
•
Cancelled Appt.
TeleVox
•
Missed appt. are a significant concern to medical offices:
lost revenue, continuity of care compromised, etc.
•
Appointment reminder system that is automated; also has
a confirmation system
•
Two main steps
• Sending an electronic appointment list to TeleVox
• Viewing the results of the automated calls made by TeleVox
•
From the list, you can confirm or cancel the appt.
Check In Patients
•
Must happen when patient arrives for appt.
•
EMR then verifies that pt’s. billing and demographic info
is complete
•
Will display patient alert dialog box if there is missing
info
•
Check In Patients in the following locations
• Scheduling moduleàBook app (using mini menu drop down feature)
• Appts. Button in the Name Bar
• DashboardàAppointment List
• Clinical TodayàAppointment tab
Create a Batch
•
Used for setting defaults for both Financial and
Clinical components
•
Financial batch establishes defaults and assigns a
name to a group of financial transactions that are
entered into the EMR; example: charges, payments,
adjustments
•
Helps identify a group of charges or payments and
helps runs reports to balance against the actual
charges or payments entered
Create a Batch
• Clinical batch settings are typically set up only once and used to set preferences and pre-populate fields common to the office workflow
• Activities related to searching for a patient or scheduling a pt. do not require to have a batch open; however, for activities related to clinical and financial, you will need to have a batch open
• The Batch application enables you to set up operator
preferences based on the workflow for your role-reduces the number of clicks required to get from one app to the next • Activities 4-11 and 4-12 in workbook
Accept a Payment
•
Payments on Account (Pmt on Acct) app is used to record pt.
payments
•
Typically you will accept a pt’s. co-pay at the check-in process
(predetermined flat fee that an individual pays for health care
services in addition to what insurance covers)
•
Access Payments on Account in the following locations
• Scheduling moduleàBook tabàleft-click on appt. to display Scheduling Mini-Menuàselect Payment link
• Name BaràAppt. buttonàAction menusàPayment link
• Transactions moduleàPmt on Acct tab
• Transactions moduleàCharge tab
Print Payment Receipts
•
After entering payment information
•
Transaction module
à
Receipts tab
•
Shows patient’s previous balance, activity of charges
and payments for that date of service, new patient
balance
Run a Journal
• Must run a journal prior to posting your batch to verify that you have entered all the
financial transactions correctly
• Once you have verified your balance with your journal, post the batch
• Journals provide a summary of financial transactions; example: charges, payments,
and adjustments
• Typically, each operator who enters financial transactions into the EMR should run
a journal for his/her batch before posting
• Once a batch has been posted, the transactions linked to it are locked in the system
and must be reversed to be corrected; you can do this in Transactions moduleàEdit app
• Can run a journal that meets certain criteria (filters)
• Posted batches are accessible anytime so you can access and old journal from
Reports appàFinancial reportsàHistorical Journal link; don’t have to save paper copies of journals
