Waiting Room: Quick Guide

This article provides an overview of the MediRecords Waiting Room page, where clinics can efficiently manage patient flow from arrival through to consultation and billing. The Waiting Room is designed to give practices real-time visibility of patient wait times and appointment progress, ensuring both staff and providers can stay on top of clinic activity.

The page is divided into three columns, Waiting Room, With Provider, and At Billing, each with its own timer and colour-coded status indicators. These features make it easy to see how long patients have been waiting, how long consultations are running, and whether billing has been finalised. By using these workflows, practices can improve efficiency, reduce bottlenecks, and deliver a smoother experience for patients.

Contents:

1. Waiting Room Overview

2. Waiting Room Workflow

   Adding a Patient to the Waiting Room

3. With Provider Workflow

4. At Billing Workflow

5. Viewing Providers in the Waiting Room

6. Creating a Walk-In Appointment

7. Editing an Appointment

8. Cancelling an Appointment

9. Opening the Patient Record

Waiting Room Overview

The Waiting Room page is divided into three separate columns:

• Waiting Room

• With Provider

• At Billing

Each of the three columns in the waiting room has its own timer. And each timer has three colour states for patient appointments as they progress from the Waiting Room, to With Doctor and then At Billing.

Waiting Room Workflow

The Waiting Room, shows all the list of patients who are booked in for appointments and are waiting at present for consultation.

Adding a Patient to the Waiting Room

1. To Add a patient to the Waiting Room from the Appointment Calendar, click Appointments to reveal the list of patients with appointments.

   

2. Click the "+" sign to add the selected patient to the waiting room.
   
   

3. The selected patient will now be visible in your Waiting Room.

The Timer displays the duration of time the patient has been in the Waiting Room.

The colour states are:

• Green - time spent in the Waiting Room is less than 15 minutes

• Amber - time spent in the Waiting Room is greater than 15 minutes, but less than 30 minutes

• Red - time spent in the Waiting Room is greater than 30 minutes
  

With Provider Workflow

This column shows the patients who are in consultation with Providers at present.
The Providers will be listed one below the other separately, and their consulting patients will be listed under them.
Only Providers selected within the filter on this page will appear on this column. This filter is a temporary setting. If you wish to permanently set these providers on this screen, you will need to save this under User preferences. 

1. To move a patient from the Waiting Room to With Provider, click the Patient's Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment.

2. Click the Arrow above Start to move the patient into consultation.

3. From here you can also Edit the Appointment, open Patient Details, or Cancel the Appointment. 
    

   

4. The patient has been moved into consultation and will appear in the With Provider section.

5. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop the appointment from Waiting Room to With Provider column.

   

6. To view the patient record, click the Patient's Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment.

7. Click Open to view patient records.

   

8. This will open the patient's medical record.

9. In some cases, a patient may need to be returned to the Waiting Room, if, for example, the patient decides they would like to be treated by a different doctor.

10. To move the patient back to the Waiting Room, click the Patient's Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment and Select Waiting Room.

11. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the appointment into the Waiting Room.
    

The colour states are:

• Green - the bottom timer is still within the originally booked appointment duration

• Amber - the bottom timer is less than 15 minutes in excess of the booked appointment duration

• Red - the bottom timer is less than 30 minutes, but greater than 15 minutes, in excess of the booked appointment duration

At Billing Workflow

This column shows the list of patients who have completed consultation and are at the Billing stage.

1. To move a patient to At Billing, click the Patient Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment.

2. Click Billing to move the patient to At Billing.
   
   

3. The patient will be moved to the At Billing section of your Waiting Room.

4. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop the appointment into the At Billing column.
    

   

5. To finalise the consultation and invoice the patient, click the Patient Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment.

6. Click Bill to create an invoice for the consultation.

7. This will pop up two options - New Invoice and New In-patient Invoice.
    

   

8. Once you select your option, a pre-populated invoice with the Patient Name and Provider Name will pop-up.

9. Fill in the required details, including Bill To, Schedule, and Item Number, and process payment.
   

10. If the patient was moved to At Billing by mistake, the patient can easily be moved back to With Doctor or Waiting Room by clicking on the Patient's Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment, and then selecting the required option.
    

11. If you are moving the patient back to waiting room, you will be given a search and select option to select the name of the Provider from a drop down list.
    

12. To remove the patient from At Billing section, once the billing is complete, click on the patient name to reveal the appointment details, and select the check box Completed. This will remove the appointment from this section, and will no longer be visible here.
    
    Note: Appointments are never automatically removed from waiting room on completion of Billing. They need to be manually marked completed to be removed.
    If there are more than 30 appointments within the At Billing section, you will not be able to add in any more.
    Ensure completed appointments are manually marked completed and removed in a timely manner to avoid stagnation. 
     

13. The Timer calculates the actual time the patient has been At Billing
    
    The colour states are:

• Green - time spent At Billing is less than 15 minutes

• Amber - time spent At Billing is greater than 15 minutes, but less than 30 minutes

• Red - time spent At Billing is greater than 30 minutes

Viewing Providers in the Waiting Room

1. To Filter or View which Providers' patients are visible in your Waiting Room, click Filter to reveal a drop-down list of users.

2. Users with a Tick next to their name are visible in your Waiting Room.
   
   

3. To Add a Doctor's Patient to your Waiting Room view, search the Name of the provider and tick and the patient will be added to your Waiting Room view.

4. To Remove a Doctor's Patient from your Waiting Room view, search the Name of the provider then untick their name, and the patient will be removed from your Waiting Room view.
   
   Note: This filter is only a temporary setting. If you wish to permanently set these providers on this screen, you will need to save this under User preferences. 

Creating a Walk In Appointment

Walk-in appointments can be created for Existing Patients and New Patients.

Existing Patients

1. Click Walk-in to Add a New Walk-in Appointment.

   

2. This will open the walk-in appointment form.

3. Complete the first half of the Form with all the required details.

   

4. Click Patient Name and type in the first few letters of the patient's name.
    

   

5. The system will create a drop-down list of the closest matches.

6. Click the Patient Name to select the patient.

7. Click Save to complete the walk-in appointment form.
   
   

New Patients

1. Click Walk-in to Add a New Walk-in Appointment.
   
   

2. This will open the walk-in appointment form.

3. Complete the first half of the Form with all the mandatory details.
   

4. Select New Patient.

5. Fill in all required details and click Save.
   

6. The walk-in appointment for the new patient has been added to your Waiting Room.
   

7. You can complete the patient record by clicking on the appointment slot and selecting "Patient Details" to open the patient record.

   

   
    

Editing an Appointment

1. To Edit the Appointment of a patient that is in the Waiting Room, click the Patient's Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment.

2. Click Edit Appt to open the appointment form.
   

3. Update the appointment with all required changes and click Save.

Cancelling an Appointment

1. To Cancel the Appointment of a patient who is in the Waiting Room, click the Patient Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment.

2. Click Cancel Appt to reveal a drop-down list of options.

   

3. Select the Reason for Cancellation from the drop-down list to cancel the appointment.

4. The patient will be removed from the Waiting Room, and the appointment will be cancelled from the Appointment Calendar.

   
    

Opening the Patient Record

1. To Open the Patient Details of the patient that is in the Waiting Room, click the Patient's Name to reveal a list of options for the appointment.

2. Click Patient Details to open the patient record.
   

3. This will open the MediRecords medical record belonging to that patient.