How to Request an Appointment

When a patient comes in for an appointment, you can now request appointments for a future date from the Appointment List in the Patient Home or the Orthodontic Clinical Summary. 

The Request Appointment feature is particularly useful for orthodontic appointments, where you might need to request an appointment for a certain number of weeks out in the future (e.g., a patient that needs to return in 6 weeks to adjust their braces). The provider in the back office can request one or more appointments while the patient is in the exam room.

All of the patient's Requested Appointments are visible from the Checkout window, alerting the front desk team. The requested appointments are also added as tiles to the side panel in the Schedule Day View (US) or Diary Day View (UK), and the front desk team can use these to formally book the appointments. 

Note: You can select to request an appointment from this queue as well, using the Request Next Appointment option. 

This helps minimize back-and-forth communication between the clinical and front office teams. The clinical team can simply provide the necessary scheduling parameters, while the front office can coordinate the date and time for each appointment directly with the patient. 

To request an appointment:

1. Navigate to the patient's Appointment List (Patient > Home or Patient > Clinical > Orthodontic Clinical Summary).
   
2. Click the Plus Sign icon. The Request Appointment window is displayed.
   
3. Select a date for the proposed appointment using the Calendar icon, or select one of the quick button options if the next appointment is supposed to be a specific amount of time in the future (e.g., click +6W if the patient needs to return in 6 weeks). 
   Note: You can click the quick button options more than once. For example, if you want to make an appointment that is 12 weeks out, you can click +6W twice.
4. Select a Location for the appointment.
5. Select an Appointment Type.
6. Select a Provider.
7. Set the duration for the appointment.
8. Enter any notes to go along with the appointment, if applicable.
9. Click Request. 
   Note: 
   -- The appointment is not on the books yet until it is formally added to the schedule. 
   -- You can request multiple appointments for a patient at a time. 
10.  Use the Plus Sign  icon to add additional appointment requests as needed. 
11. Navigate to the Schedule/Diary for the location (Location > Schedule or Diary). The requested appointments are added as tiles in the left side panel that you can drag-and-drop into the schedule.
    
12. Click the Requested Appointment tile and drag it to the appropriate column and time in the schedule. The appointment is now officially scheduled. 

Note: Click the X icon next to the tile when the appointment request needs to be removed. A prompt is displayed to confirm you want to proceed. Click Yes, Remove to cancel the request. The appointment is moved to the Pending List.