The Appointment Screen
Features:
- Hovering the cursor over the patient’s name will show the reason for the appointment and any notes made regarding the appointment. When the cursor turns to a hand, clicking on the patient’s name will display notes and reason for visit.
- Clicking the patient’s name will open the ‘Edit Appointment’ screen to make changes and updates
Booking Appointments
There are a few ways to choose from when you need to book an appointment.
Choose one of the following:
- Click on the appropriate date using the CALENDAR button on the upper left corner
OR
- Click the month tab and select the date
OR
- Advance a day at a time with the arrow on either side of the date in the upper left corner of the screen
OR
- Click on flip view and pick a date/time
OR
- Click on the desired appointment from the ‘Search for next available appointment’ screen
- TIP: To search the providers schedule a schedule needs to be set for the provider first.
Clicking on the desired time will open a window to enter appointment details (See picture above)
After Selecting the Appointment Slot
- In the NAME box, type part of the patients last name and click the SEARCH button or hit the enter key
- From the list generated, click on the grey demographic number for the desired patient
- TYPE will yield default values for DURATION REASON RESOURCES and LOCATION
- The DURATION box will default to the time associated with that template and can be changed to any other length of the appointment desired.
- CRITICAL will flag the appointment visually with an exclamation mark
- Fill in the reason for the appointment and click ADD APPOINTMENT
Booking Meetings
- Type the meeting information where you would put the patient’s name and save in the same way that you would save a booked appointment. If you do not click the SEARCH button, the program assumes you are booking a meeting and will put a period in front of the first word.
- Enter the Date and start time of the meeting.
- Clicking on the desired time will open a window to enter meeting details
- Fill in the remainder of the information and click ADD APPOINTMENT to add to the appointment screen
Booking Group Appointments
- Select a group that includes all of the providers that you are going to need for this appointment (top right hand corner of the screen)
- Open the make an appointment screen which ever way you prefer.
- In the NAME box, type part of the patients last name and click the SEARCH button or hit the enter key
- From the list generated, click on the grey demographic number for the desired patient
- TYPE will yield default values for DURATION REASON RESOURCES and LOCATION
- The DURATION box will default to the time associated with that template and can be changed to any other length of the appointment desired.
- CRITICAL will flag the appointment visually with an exclamation mark
- Click ADD GROUP APPOINTMENT
- Select the providers you want involved in this appointment by clicking the check box in the second column, beside their name or click the ‘check all’ link at the bottom. This will make the appointment with a number of people, but with only one person able to do billing and encounter notes.
- Click ADD GROUP APPOINTMENT again and all the providers you checked off will have the same appointment with the same patient at the same time
- Finish by clicking add appointment
Double Bookings
If you click on a time which is already booked, this creates a double booking. OSCAR will warn you that you are about to make a double booking. The background bars in the ‘Make an Appointment’ window will turn yellow and a message at the top of the window will say ‘Double Booking’.
Repeat Bookings
If you wish to book multiple appointments for the same reason Click the R button on the lower right corner of the Make an Appointment screen
- Choose the time interval between appointments (number of days, weeks, months, or years), and the end date (the last date you want the repeated appointment to occur on)
- Click add recurring appointment
Deleting an Appointment
- Click once on the patient’s name
- At the bottom of the EDIT APPOINTMENT screen click on DELETE APPOINTMENT
Changing the Appointment Status
- Click once on the icon to the left of the patient’s name
- As you continue to click on the changing icon, you progress to the next appointment status in the loop
Patient’s Demographic Method
- If the patient has an appointment, click on the ‘M’ icon beside the patient’s name in the appointment screen
OR
- click on the SEARCH tab, type the patient’s name in the box and click SEARCH
Searching for a Patient
The Search Tab is used to search the database for a specific patient’s Master Demographic record which has many office functions, including booking an appointment.
- From the Appointment screen, click on the ‘SEARCH’ tab
- The program will default to a ‘NAME’ search
- Type in part of the patient’s last name, then a comma and then the 1st initial of the patient’s first name
- Click the ‘SEARCH’ button or press the ‘ENTER’ key
- When the list of names come up, click on the ‘Demographic No’ button to bring up the Patient Master Demographic information
- Clicking on any of the headings will cause the list of results to sort on that heading
TIPS:
- You can search by Date of Birth, Name, Health Card Number, Address, Phone Number or Chart Number.
- For a general search, leave the search box blank and click the SEARCH button to get the full list of patients in the data base.
- The fewer amount of characters that you type in for the search, the better chance you have of finding the patient without a typo error.
- Apostrophe’s need to be escaped \’ as in O\’ Sullivan
- Clicking on the day tab will automatically return to the current day.
Jumping to Another Day
- In the MONTH view: Click on the arrows to the left of the date on the upper corner of each monthly calendar to advance one month forward or backward
- In the MONTH view: Click on the number of the month’s date to show that day in the appointment screen
- In the DAY view: enter the specific date in the boxes in the upper right corner of the screen and click on the GO button to jump to a specific day
- In the DAY view: click on the word CALENDAR to access the Calendar window and click on the desired day to jump directly to that day on the appointment screen. The current day will show in orange.
Flip View
To view many days of the appointment screen in order to look for an appointment space with a specific provider:
- On the appointment screen click on the small round button to the left of each provider’s name at the top of the screen. This view gives you a month at a glance
- Click LAST MONTH or NEXT MONTH at the bottom of the list to advance to another month or alternatively, use the arrows beside the provider’s name
- All the providers in that group are displayed in a drop down menu on the upper left of the screen and can be accessed by clicking on one
- Booked appointment slots will be displayed as grayed out boxes with a minus sign
- Double bookings will appear as bright orange vertical lines
- You can make an appointment from this screen by clicking the desired day and time to access the same ‘Make Appointment’ screen as in the Appointment screen
- Clicking on the hyperlink of the date will take you back to the Appointment screen for that particular date
Check Schedules
- From the Appointment screen, switch to the group you want by clicking on the arrow beside the Groups box in the upper right corner of the screen
- Select the desired group
- Click on the ‘MONTH’ tab
- This will show you which providers are in on each day of the month
- The program will default to the current month at the top with the previous month and the next month below the current month