How to Set Appointment Preferences in the Patient Record

Sensei Cloud enables you to set appointment time preferences within a patient's record to simplify the appointment scheduling process.

Note: Setting up a patient's appointment preferences makes it easier to stay within a patient's preferred time slots when booking an appointment, but it does not prevent a user from scheduling an appointment that is outside of these preferences. 

To set a patient's appointment preferences:

1. From the Patient tab, click Patient Record.
2. Click Edit Patient Record.
3. Scroll or use the Jump To quick link to navigate to the Patient Preferences section.
4. Next to Appointment Preferences, select Yes. The days of the week are displayed with time options.
   Note: The Appointment Preferences option defaults to No unless changed.
5. For each day of the week, select an availability status. 
   
   The availability options are:
   --Unavailable: Patient indicates that appointment should not be scheduled on this weekday
   --AM Only: Patient indicates that appointment on this weekday should be before 12:00pm
   --PM Only: Patient indicates that appointment on this weekday should be at or after 12:00pm
   --Anytime: Patient indicates that appointments can be scheduled at any time on this weekday
6. Click Save Patient.

The appointment preferences are visible in the patient record and the Appointment Info section of the Appointment window when scheduling or editing an appointment.

If you place the appointment on the calendar during a day or time that violates the patient's appointment preferences, a message is displayed warning you that the time slot is outside of the patient's defined preferences. 

You can still schedule the appointment even if it violates the patient's preferences if you select Schedule Anyway (e.g., perhaps the patient is available at a time or day that they are typically not and you can make an exception this time). 

Note: The patient's appointment preferences are practice-wide and apply equally to all practice locations (even when booking in a location that is not the patient's default/preferred location).

Patient appointment preferences can be updated at any time within the patient record as their scheduling needs change.