3. The Appointment Screen

Chapter Contents

[1] The Appointment Screen | [2] Making Appointments | [3] Appointment Screen Tabs

Table of Contents

[1] The Appointment Screen

The screen can hold up to 6 providers comfortably. Further on in the manual instructions will show you how to handle more than 6 providers by creating groups and flipping between the groups.

APPOINTMENT STATUS ICONS

To change the status of the appointment when the patient arrives, click on the symbol immediately to the left of the patient’s name in the appointment screen. Each click advances to the next appointment status.

Meaning of appointment status symbols:

• appointment booked
• day sheet printed & chart pulled
• patient is here (appointment bar will turn green)
• patient is picked (appointment bar will turn pink)
• empty room (appointment bar will turn yellow)
• no-show appointment (appointment bar will turn grey)
• appointment has been cancelled
• patient has been billed (appointment bar will turn blue)

Other Symbols on Appointment Bar

• E click to access the patient encounter record (provider view only)
• B click to bill the encounter (provider view only)
• -B click to un-bill an appointment for correction (provider view only). This icon only appears as a replacement for B after the patient has been billed.
• M click to view the patient’s master demographic record

• Rx click to view OscarRx, where you can fill out prescriptions for the patient (provider view only)

TEMPLATES

If your office has complex schedules for a number of doctors, you may want to use the Templates feature. With this the receptionist will be able to know at a glance at what times of the day the doctor is available, the duration of each appointment or designate a time slot kept open for same-day appointments. Each office can designate their own coding system, but the following is an example of some coding systems:

1 = 15 min. appointment | 2 = 30 min. appointment | H = hospital rounds | A = academic time

The template codes are displayed in a small box beside each time in the appointment screen. Templates are created in the Administrative View and will be discussed later in this manual.

Tip:
  - Click F11 to view the appointment screen from 8am to 5 pm.
  - F11 is a toggle switch that minimizes the task and menu bar at the 
  top & bottom, giving you more viewing area on the appointment screen.
  - Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get it to work.
  - This will only hold for the current session on Internet Explorer.
  -When you log off and log in, you will have to press F11 again to
  have the larger viewing area.
  

"View All" Version of the Appointment Screen

Schedule View of the Appointment Screen

HELP
 To request help from the support team or make a
 suggestion, click on the HELP link in the upper right corner
 of the screen. Click on the ‘CONTACT SUPPORT’ link
 in the bottom white screen and fill out the e-mail with
 your name, e-mail, topic and your request. This e-mail will
 go to a central person on the team who will direct it to the
 appropriate technical staff.

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[2] Making Appointments

At 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

1. 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
2. Clicking on the desired time will open a window to enter appointment details
   
3. In the NAME box, type part of the patients last name and click the SEARCH button or hit the enter key
4. From the list generated, click on the grey demographic number for the desired patient
5. Change the length of the appointment in the DURATION box, if needed, from the default of 15 min to 30, 45, 60 min etc.
6. Fill in the reason for the appointment and click ADD APPOINTMENT

BOOKING MEETINGS

1. 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.
2. Click on the appropriate date using the CALENDAR button on the upper right 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
3. Clicking on the desired time will open a window to enter meeting details
4. Fill in the remainder of the information and click ADD APPOINTMENT to add to the appointment screen

BOOKING GROUP APPOINTMENTS

1. Select a group that includes all of the providers that you are going to need for this appointment
2. Follow all the steps in # 2 ‘Booking Appointments’ to the last point
3. Click ADD GROUP APPOINTMENT
4. Select the providers you want involved in this appointment by clicking the check box in the second colum, beside their name or click the ‘check all’ link at the bottom. This will make the appointment with a nuber of people, but with only one person able to do billing and encounter notes.
5. 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
6. The ‘Existing Appt’ shows the related appointments in that time slot

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 Appointment’ window will turn orange and a message at the bottom of the window will say ‘Double Booking’. This is only a warning in case you didn’t intend to make the double booking.

REPEAT BOOKINGS

If you wish to book multiple appointments for the same reason (ex. annual checkup):

1. Click the R button on the lower right corner of the Make an Appointment screen
2. 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)
3. Click ADD GROUP APPOINTMENT

DELETING an APPOINTMENT

1. Click once on the patient’s name
2. At the bottom of the EDIT APPOINTMENT screen click on DELETE APPOINTMENT

CHANGING the APPOINTMENT STATUS

1. Click once on the icon to the left of the patient’s name
2. As you continue to click on the changing icon, you progress to the next appointment status in the loop

PATIENT’S DEMOGRAPHIC RECORD

• 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.

1. From the Appointment screen, click on the ‘SEARCH’ tab
2. The program will default to a ‘NAME’ search
3. Type in part of the patient’s last name, then a comma and then the 1st initial of the patient’s first name
4. Click the ‘SEARCH’ button or press the ‘ENTER’ key
5. When the list of names come up, click on the ‘Demographic ID’ button to bring up the Patient Master Demographic information

Tip:
 1 You can search by Date of Birth, Name, Health Number,
Address, Phone Number or Chart Number.
 2 For a General Search, leave the search box blank and click
the SEARCH button to get the full list of patients in the
database.
 3 The smaller amount of the name you type in for the search,
the better chance you have of finding the patient without a
typo error.

NOTE: Clicking on the day tab will automatically return you 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

In the appointment screen:

To view many days of the appointment screen in order to look for an appointment space with a specific provider:

• 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 greyed 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

1. 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
2. Select the desired group
3. Click on the ‘MONTH’ tab
4. This will show you which providers are in on each day of the month
   
5. The program will default to the current month at the top with the previous month and the next month below the current month
6. If the desired month is not showing, you can advance forward or back by using the arrows on either side of the date in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
   OR your can enter the exact date in the box in the upper right corner of the screen and click the GO button.
7. Clicking on the desired date will bring you to the Appointment Screen for that day.

[3] Appointment Screen Tabs

Month Tab

This tab allows you to see the whole month at a glace and see which doctor is working on specific days (See previous paragraph: "Checking Schedules").

Resource Tab

OscarResource is a web-based clinical resource database that is maintained by contributors from across the country.  It contains links to websites that are relevant to actual clinical practice, and is constantly being updated with the latest information on medicine and other relevant topics.  See Chapter 13

Search Tab

The Search Tab is used to search the database for a specific patient’s Master Demographic record to perform many office functions, including booking an appointment. See Chapter 4

Report Tab

This tab gives you access to various common reports used in a medical office. Active Patient List, Day Sheet, All Appointments, Bad Appointment Sheet, Patient Chart List, No Show Appointment List.  See Chapter 9- Report Tab

Billing Tab

Reports can be created on appointments that fall under one of the following categories: billed, unbilled, unsettled, OB, or Flu. See Chapter 9- Billing Tab

Lab Tab

The Lab tab gives you a link to the web site of the local laboratories. Doctors and office staff need to register with the laboratory to access their patients lab reports. Lab results can be accessed more quickly than waiting for the hard copy to come in the mail, but the paper reports will still be sent to your office.

MSG Tab

OSCARmsg is a secure messaging system within the intranet of the OSCAR clinic and between OSCAR clinic sites. The functions work like many common e-mail programs. See Chapter 11

Con Tab

From the "con" tab, the staff booking specialist appointments can pick up the request and process through each step. Both doctor and staff can check the status of the task, from waiting for the specialist to call back, waiting for the patient to call back and completion of the task.  See Chapter 10

Preference Tab

The Preference Tab gives you the following options: Change your password, change the start and end time showing on the appointment screen, or edit or add a group.  See Chapter 2- User Preferences

Tickler Tab

The Tickler is a system is used to remind staff to call or book a patient for a ‘repeat procedure’ as well as alerting staff of unpaid bills or any other important reminders.  See Chapter 11- Ticker Reminder System

eDoc Tab

This is the storage holding area for eDocs that you can use for your favorite patient handouts, keep your current contact list or the latest ON-CALL schedule.  See Chapter 12

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