CHAPTER © 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 Scheduling

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Learning Outcomes When you finish this chapter, you will be able to: 3.1 List the four main areas of the Office Hours window. 3.2 Demonstrate how to enter an appointment. 3.3 Demonstrate how to schedule a follow-up appointment. 3.4 Demonstrate how to search for an available time slot. 3.5 Demonstrate how to book an appointment for a new patient. 3.6 Demonstrate how to book repeating appointments. 3.7 Demonstrate how to reschedule an appointment. 3-2

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Learning Outcomes (continued) When you finish this chapter, you will be able to: 3.8Demonstrate how to verify a patient’s insurance eligibility. 3.9Demonstrate how to check in a patient. 3.10Demonstrate how to create an overdue balance report for upcoming appointments Demonstrate how to create a recall list. 3.12Demonstrate how to enter provider breaks in the schedule Demonstrate how to preview and print a provider’s schedule. 3-3

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Key Terms chart number Office Hours break Office Hours calendar Office Hours patient information provider’s daily schedule provider selection box recall list 3-4

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.1 The Office Hours Window Medisoft provides a special program called Office Hours to handle appointment scheduling. The Office Hours program has its own window, including its own menu bar and toolbar. 3-5

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.1 The Office Hours Window (continued) Office Hours contains four main areas: 1.The provider selection box, located at the far-right end of the toolbar, is used to select a provider. 2.The provider’s daily schedule, shown in the right half of the screen, is a listing of time slots for a particular day for a specific provider. 3.The Office Hours calendar is used to select or change dates. 4.The area just below the calendar contains Office Hours patient information about the patient who is selected in the provider’s daily schedule. 3-6

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.1 The Office Hours Window (continued) The four main areas of Office Hours 3-7

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.2 Entering Appointments To enter an appointment in Office Hours: –Select the provider for whom the appointment is being scheduled. –Choose the date of the desired appointment. –Then enter the appointment by clicking the Appointment Entry shortcut button or by double- clicking in a time slot on the schedule. 3-8

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.2 Entering Appointments (continued) Time slots on the schedule 3-9

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.2 Entering Appointments (continued) To enter an appointment (continued): –After selecting a time slot, the New Appointment Entry dialog box is displayed, which contains information about the patient and the appointment, such as: ▪ Chart No.▪ Name▪ Phone Nos. ▪ Resource▪ Note▪ Case ▪ Reason▪ Length▪ Date ▪ Time▪ Provider▪ Repeat 3-10

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Chart number is a unique number that identifies a patient. –Links all information about a patient –Chosen from the Chart drop-down list New Patients –Skip the Chart box and key the patient’s name in the blank box to the right of the Chart box. 3.2 Entering Appointments (continued) 3-11

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.2 Entering Appointments (continued) After the New Appointment Entry dialog box is completed, clicking the Save button enters the information on the schedule. New Appointment Entry dialog box 3-12

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.3 Booking Follow-Up Appointments To search for a future appointment in Office Hours, use the Go to a Date shortcut button on the toolbar. –The Go to a Date dialog box is displayed, allowing the user to search by days, weeks, months, and years from the currently selected date. 3-13

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.3 Booking Follow-Up Appointments (continued) Use the five options in the Go to a Date dialog box to choose a future date. –After a future date option has been selected, clicking the Go button closes the dialog box and begins the search. –The future date is located, and that date’s calendar schedule is displayed. 3-14

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.4 Searching for Available Time Slots The Find Open Time dialog box is used to search for the next available appointment, with filters for length of appointment and for acceptable hours and days of the week. 3-15

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.5 Entering Appointments for New Patients Appointments can be scheduled in Office Hours before patient information is entered in Medisoft. –To book the appointment, double-click in the schedule and key the patient’s first and last name in the blank box to the right of the Chart box. It is possible to enter an appointment before a chart number has been assigned to a patient. 3-16

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.6 Booking Repeated Appointments Some patients require appointments on a repeated basis. The Repeat Change button at the bottom of the New Appointment Entry dialog box is used. 3-17

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.6 Booking Repeated Appointments (continued) The Repeat Change feature is used to schedule repeated appointments on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. 3-18

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.7 Rescheduling and Canceling Appointments Changing an appointment is accomplished with the Cut and Paste commands on the Office Hours Edit menu. –Cut the appointment from the old time slot and paste it in the new one. Appointments can be canceled and not rescheduled simply by using the Cut command. A right-click on the mouse will also display a pop-up menu with these options. 3-19

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. To reschedule an appointment: –Locate the appointment to change. –Click on the existing time-slot box. –Click Cut on the Edit menu. –Click the date on calendar at the rescheduled time. –Click the desired time-slot box on the schedule. –Click Paste on the Edit menu. To cancel an appointment: –Locate the appointment on the schedule. –Click the time-slot box to select appointment. –Click Cut on the Edit menu. 3.7 Rescheduling and Canceling Appointments 3-20

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.8 Verifying Insurance Eligibility and Benefits Before the patients sees the physician, the patient’s eligibility for insurance is verified. Information provided by the payer includes: –Patient’s current coverage –Amount of copayment, coinsurance, and deductible –Medical necessity under the payer’s rules 3-21

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.8 Verifying Insurance Eligibility and Benefits (continued) To verify eligibility using Medisoft –Select Eligibility Verification on the Activities menu. –Right-click on a Case in the Patient List dialog box. –Right-click on an appointment in Office hours. –Select Eligibility Verification. –Click the Verify button. 3-22

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.8 Verifying Insurance Eligibility and Benefits (continued) Preview Window with Eligibility Response Displayed 3-23

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3.9 Checking Patients In and Out Patients are checked in and out by using the status option. To check in a patient: –Locate the appointment on the Office Hours calendar. –Click once to start the appointment. –Right-click to view the shortcut menu. –Click Checked In on the shortcut menu. 3-24

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Creating an Overdue Balance Report for Patients with Appointments It is much easier to collect on overdue accounts when the patient is in the office, rather than by phone or mail. In Medisoft, the Appointment List with Remainder Balance report provides account balance information. 3-25

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Adding a Patient to the Recall List When patient appointments are scheduled well in advance, it is practical to set up reminders. In Medisoft, a recall list can be created and maintained by clicking Patient Recall on the Lists menu. The Patient Recall List dialog box is displayed. –Patients can also be added to the recall list by clicking the Patient Recall Entry shortcut button on the toolbar. Recall list is a list of patients who need to be contacted for future appointments. 3-26

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Adding a Patient to the Recall List (continued) The Patient Recall List dialog box organizes the recall information in a column format. 3-27

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Adding a Patient to the Recall List (continued) Add patients to the recall list by clicking the New button in the Patient Recall List dialog box or by clicking the Patient Recall Entry shortcut button. –The Patient Recall dialog box is displayed, completed, and then saved. 3-28

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Creating Provider Breaks The Office Hours break is a block of time when a physician is unavailable for appointments with patients. –This feature is used so that appointments are not booked when a physician will be unavailable. Physicians are sometimes unavailable due to personal or work-related reasons. 3-29

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Creating Provider Breaks (continued) To set up a break for a listed provider, click the Break Entry shortcut button. –The New Break Entry dialog box will appear, where the information is entered and saved. 3-30

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Viewing and Printing Schedules To view a list of all appointments for a provider for a given day, click Appointment List from the Office Hours Reports menu. –The report can be previewed on the screen, and then printed, or sent directly to the printer by clicking the Print Appointment List shortcut button. Various buttons are used to view the schedule at different sizes, move from page to page, print the schedule, and save the schedule as a file. 3-31

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Viewing and Printing Schedules To Print the Provider Schedule –Click Appointment List on the Office Hours Reports menu. –Under Print Selection, select print the report on the printer. –Click the Start button. The Data Selection dialog box is displayed. –Enter the date in both Dates boxes. –Select provider. –Click OK button. 3-32

© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Viewing and Printing Schedules (continued ) 3-33