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Appointment Settings
With Online Scheduling, you are able to organize appointment settings to reflect the times and frequency that you are comfortable with patients scheduling without talking to the office. For example, you may want to allow a bit of prep time in between appointments, depending on your staff on certain days. We also have the ability to limit book, this may be helpful if you want to have 48-hour advance notice so that someone doesn't book the night before an 8am opening. The best part - it's completely customizable for what best suits your practice!
To determine the best parameters to set, think about:
- What times are appointments allowed to start for your office? Every 15 minutes (9:00, 9:15, 9:30, 9:45…) or less frequently?
- Advanced Notice: what’s the soonest a patient could book their appointment?
- Calendar Range: what’s the farthest out a patient could book their appointment
- Calendar Availability: should available times be pulled from your operatory or provider calendar?
The patient can choose a specific provider or “any”. When “any provider” is selected, the provider that has availability and appears farthest-right on the schedule is automatically assigned. The practice is able to change the provider.
Set a Time Block:
A Time Block makes times unavailable for online scheduling. For customers using Eaglesoft, we import operatory blocks that were created in the PMS into RevenueWell.
We will not yet read provider hours, custom hours, or holidays from Eaglesoft (though we do recognize holidays entered in RW). Practices use these to track things like lunch hours and providers who work fewer hours than the general practice hours, and these should still be entered as time blocks on the RW calendar.
*Note that blocks created in the PMS can only be updated or removed from within the PMSBelow depicts an Eaglesoft time block that has been imported to the Scheduler in RevenueWell:
When scheduling a time block, you can set up an All Day Block or specify the start and end time. If the Time Block should be reoccurring, set it up to Repeat.
At least one provider or operatory is required.
Once the time block is created, double-click to review the details or edit.
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Appointment Types
The patient will start by selecting one of the following:
- I am a new patient
- I am a returning patient
Next, they will choose the appointment type needed. Each appointment type can allow for the patient to direct schedule or function as an appointment request.
- Direct Scheduling: Patient selects a specific time and books the appointment themselves. (You simply approve upon final review).
- Appointment Requests: The patient proposes 3 times they'd like to come in
- Review and contact them to book the appointment
- Customize which appointment type allow Direct Scheduling vs. Appointment Requests
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Provider vs. Operatory Based Scheduling
Provider Based Scheduling
With Online Scheduling, choose which appointment types give patients the ability to book with a specific provider.
Navigate to:Appointment Preferences > Edit Appointment Type > Toggle on "Patient Provider Preference"If you haven't already associated providers with this appointment type, you'll be prompted to do so before saving.Work Flow -
When a practice reviews an incoming request, the provider preference is in bold.
The "Patient Provider Preference" and a tooltip will also show in the “Accept an Appointment” screen and “Edit Appointment” screen. You can add or change providers using the “+” and “x” buttons.The tooltip in these sections will include a recommendation to contact the patient if you need to change the provider to someone other than who the patient selected.
Operatory Based Scheduling
There are two types of calendars in RevenueWell: an operatory calendar and a provider calendar. You can customize which one drives availability in the Online Scheduling tool.
For billing purposes, some practices default the provider on all appointments to the doctor. If this is the case at your practice, you’ll need to use Operatory-based Availability to ensure the Online Scheduling tool can read your hygienist’s calendars.
Changing the Setting:
- Go to your Appointment Preferences and change Calendar Availability to Operatory-based:
- Scroll down to Appointment Types and edit each one. Fill in the appropriate operatories:
Your patients will not see your Operatory names when booking appointments. They’ll simply see which times are available!
- Go to your Appointment Preferences and change Calendar Availability to Operatory-based:
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Review Appointments
Once you’ve enabled Online Scheduling and made it available to your patients, you’ll be alerted that there are new appointments to review when the calendar icon (on the left-hand side of the screen) shows a dot:
In the RW Calendar, the Practice sees a list of new appointments patients scheduled or requested online. They can accept, edit or decline/dismiss each one:
Previewing Requests
Before you decide whether to accept or decline an appointment, you can preview its details. Direct Scheduled appointments appear on the calendar and on the New Requests List. On the calendar, you’ll see they’re styled differently until they’ve been accepted:Click on the appointment to review details and Accept (with or without changes) or Decline. You’ll also have the option to send a message to the patient:
To preview an Appointment Request, click on it in the New Requests list and then click Preview for one of the dates/times:
To schedule the appointment, click Select next to the best date/time (or click Add Another Time).
Accepting AppointmentsAfter you’ve clicked Accept, you can edit any of the appointment details like time and provider. You must also add an operatory.
Patient CommunicationWhen you Accept or Decline an appointment you’ll have the option to send the patient a message.
Text is the default communication method (when the patient’s phone number is available). They’re sent from the practice’s long code and appear under Messenger.
If you select Email instead, it’s sent from the sender listed under Settings > Email Settings. If the patient responds, it will go to that email address' inbox (outside of RW). -
Enabling Writeback
The following information will guide you through how to enable Eaglesoft appointment writeback for Online Scheduling.
- Confirm Eaglesoft Version
We support Eaglesoft versions 18+ for appointment writeback - Upgrade .NET Framework
Updating Your NET Framework - Restart Practice Server
You can now restart your server. (This will only take 5-10 minutes but should be done in the evening after COB as to not create performance issues during business hours.)
Once logged into RevenueWell, walk through the following steps:
- Navigate to the Settings Icon
- Click "Scheduling"
- Turn Online Scheduling on using the toggle
- Scroll to select "Sync Appointments to PMS"
- Confirm Eaglesoft Version
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Using Writeback
This feature supports:
- Appointments booked via Online Scheduling will writeback to the PMS after being approved in RW.
- Appointments manually created in RW can writeback to the PMS.
- Changes to appointments in either system will update the other.
- New patients can be created in RW to writeback to the PMS.
For appointments to writeback, Eaglesoft needs to know which appointment type from their list should be assigned. To do this, click "Edit" next to the appointment type in your RevenueWell Scheduler Settings.
Here, you will choose which Eaglesoft appointment type correlates.
You can also add a new appointment type and title it the same as what you use in Eaglesoft so that it matches:
Each appointment must have a linked patient. No action is needed if the patient enters the same name & birthday the practice has on record. If the patient enters a nickname, the practice needs to confirm which patient record is correct.
New patients can also quickly be added to the system.
Once you approve an appointment, you can change the Eaglesoft appointment type if needed. Make sure that your own name is selected as the Eaglesoft author (it tells the PMS who created this appointment).
SYNCING:- Appointments sync to the PMS in about 2 minutes.
- You will receive alerts if an appointment fails to sync. To see the sync error:
- From the Scheduler screen, you will select "Sync Status"
- By clicking on the Sync Error, you are brought to the Sync Status page, where you can review the issue with why the appointment request is not syncing.
- Adjust the appointment details and click Submit to attempt another sync.
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FAQs
Does it sync with the practice automatically or do we have to wait for it to update? Or do we have to manually update? If appointment writeback is enabled, appointments will sync to your PMS after they are approved by the practice. Syncing should take about two minutes for each appointment. If a provider leaves the practice, how does the scheduling tool update accordingly? Where do those appointments go? How do I manage that? If a provider is removed from the practice, this change will sync to RW and patients will not have the option to book future appointments with them. The practice will need to manually update their settings in Appointment Preferences to reflect changes to provider availability. How are time blocks from my PMS handled? We currently import blocks from Eaglesoft every 5 minutes. For customers on other PMS’s you can enter time blocks directly on the RevenueWell calendar. These will also be respected when patients go to schedule appointments online. Note that while time blocks from Eaglesoft do show up in the scheduler, they can only be edited within the PMS.
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