Appointment Settings: Practice & Provider Configuration

This article provides an overview of the Appointment Configuration Settings in MediRecords, which govern how your practice calendar operates, including practice opening hours, provider session times, and the types of appointments you offer.

Settings can be configured at three levels: practice-wide, where you define operating hours, calendar time blocks, and colour coding; user-level preferences, which let each provider control how their calendar is displayed; and patient-specific settings, which allow for tailored appointment intervals and notes.

Contents:

1. Practice Configuration

2. User Preference Configuration

   • Default Appointment Type

   • Appointment Provider Filter

   • Show Providers with Active Sessions

   • Default Appointment View

   • SMS Template

   • Default SMS Reminder

   • Send Email Notification to Patients

   • Check Referral Validity on Appointment

   • Engage Appointments

   • Room

3. Patient-Specific Appointment Configuration

   • Default Appointment Interval

   • Appointment Note

4. Troubleshooting

Practice Configuration

Operating Hours and Sessions

MediRecords offers flexible functionalities in booking and managing appointments for your practice through the use of sessions. However, the hours of the practice must be set first before this feature can be used.

The Practice section of Appointment Configuration is for setting the Operating Hours of the practice, the calendar units (calendar' time blocks) and how you would like your appointment types colour coded.

Navigate to More > Settings > Appointments > Select the Practice. The following settings will be reflected in the practice' calendar. 

1. To configure the calendar's Time Blocks, click Calendar Units and select from the drop down list provided (minimum unit of time 3 minutes, maximum 120).
   
   
    

2. To set the Practice' Opening Time, click Start Time and select the time when the clinic opens for business.
   
   
    

3. To set the clinics' Closing Time, click End Time and select the time when the clinic closes at the end of the day.
   
   
    

4. To set which days the clinic closes, click Day Closed and select which days of the week the clinic is closed.
   
   
   
    

5. To change the Color Palette, click the drop down list provided to select either Status or Type. This setting will determine if your appointments are color coded by appointment Status or Type.
   
   
    

6. To enable the reason field to be available when re-scheduling appointments, click on the check box of Rescheduling Appointments.
   
   
    

7. Click Update to apply the changes.

NOTE: The calendar units are set for all users in your practice and cannot be changed on a user level.
 

User Preference Configuration

By default, MediRecords displays the schedules of all doctors, even those who are unavailable, on the appointment calendar.

To customise your appointment preferences, navigate to the Preference page.
You can navigate to this page in two ways:

If you are the user, click the User Icon > Select Preferences  


 

If you are the Practice Manager wanting to access a User's Preferences:

Now follow the below steps to configure the preferences for the individual Provider.
 

Default Appointment Type

This field gives you the option to set a default Appointment Type.  Setting an appointment type here ensures that every time an appointment is created for this User, this appointment type is auto populated.

Appointment Provider Filter 

This is a search and select field that allows you to add multiple providers. The list of providers added into this field will be reflected on the Appointment Calendar and Waiting Room.

Show Providers with Active Sessions

Enabling this checkbox will show only the providers who have active sessions for the present date and you will not be able to see providers who have no sessions on this day.
Enabling this field will disable the Appointment Provider Filter.

Default Appointment View

This option gives you the view of either the Day or the Agenda on the Appointment Calendar.

Day's View on Appointment Calendar

Agenda View on Appointment Calendar

SMS Template

This field gives you the option to select the default SMS template that would auto populate when an appointment reminder for an appointment.

The SMS icon gives you a preview of the default SMS template that is selected to be set in the SMS template field.

Default SMS Reminder

This field gives you the option to select the default mode to send out the SMS Reminders to patients.

Send Email Notification to Patients

Enabling this checkbox enables email notification of appointments to patients. This includes any changes made to the appointments such as creating a new appointment, editing an existing appointment, cancelling an appointment and deleting an appointment.
For more information, see Appointment Reminders & Confirmations - Email.

Check Referral Validity on Appointment

Enabling this field will create a pop-up when creating an appointment that this Provider requires a valid referral to book an appointment. However, this is not mandatory and you can still create the appointment without adding a referral by clicking OK.

Engage Appointments

Minimum notice required to cancel appointments via Engage

Selecting the Number of Days and Hours in these fields triggers a pop-up for patients while cancelling an appointment in Engage, informing them that the appointment is too close to the appointment time and cannot be cancelled. For more information on this, please see Engage: Appointment Configuration.

Room

This section helps to select the rooms the Provider will be consulting in, within each practice.
See Managing Appointment & Consulting Rooms for more information.

Patient-Specific Appointment Configuration

1. To access Appointment Preferences for patients, open Patient Record by searching and selecting patient name from the Patient Grid or top menu ribbon.

   

2. Go to the Details Tab > Settings section

3. The Appointment Preferences are at the bottom of the page.
    

    

Default Appointment Interval

This indicates the default length of appointment; overrides appointment type default.
This can be from 3 minutes up to 24 hours.

Appointment Note

You can add in miscellaneous free-text notes which is viewable by all users. The note appears on the Appointment window when an appointment is created.

Troubleshooting

Calendar units differ from what a provider expects

Cause: Calendar Units are set once for the whole practice under Practice Configuration and cannot be changed at an individual user level.

Resolution: Confirm the current setting under More > Settings > Appointments > Select the Practice > Calendar Units. Any change here applies to every user in the practice.

Escalate when: different calendar unit lengths are genuinely needed for different providers within the same practice.

The Appointment Provider Filter list doesn’t seem to apply

Cause: Enabling Show Providers with Active Sessions disables the Appointment Provider Filter.

Resolution: If a specific list of providers should be shown, disable Show Providers with Active Sessions in the user’s Preferences, then confirm the Appointment Provider Filter list.

Escalate when: the provider list still doesn’t reflect what is set after checking both fields.

A referral validity pop-up appears even though a referral isn’t required

Cause: The provider has Check Referral Validity on Appointment enabled in their Preferences.

Resolution: The pop-up is not mandatory; click OK to continue creating the appointment without adding a referral. To stop the pop-up appearing altogether, disable the setting in the provider’s Preferences.

Escalate when: clicking OK does not dismiss the pop-up or let the appointment be created.

An appointment is a different length than its appointment type default

Cause: The patient’s Default Appointment Interval, set on their Patient Record, overrides the default duration of the appointment type.

Resolution: Check the Appointment Preferences under the patient’s Details tab > Settings section, and adjust or clear the Default Appointment Interval if it shouldn’t override the appointment type.

Escalate when: the appointment length is still incorrect after clearing the patient-specific interval.

Further Reading

• Appointment Calendar: Customising Views, Adding Providers, & Appointment Colouration
• SMS Appointment Reminders & Confirmations
• Managing Appointment & Consulting Rooms