Intro to Schedule

Set up Schedule

Click the Manage Facilities button in order to initiate the Schedule setup process.

Note:  Facilities represent your office.  The SOAPware Pro version of Schedule is able to handle any number of facilities or offices that you want to define.  Some users may want to define a single facility for all their offices, but this is not advised.  You will later find that having a facility defined for each of your locations is important for billing purposes.

You should now See the Facility Manager.  The Facility Manager allows for the setup of any number of facilities, and allows for the customizations of the facilities to your practice.  Let’s start by creating a new facility. Click the Create New Facility button.

In the next dialog, we are going to enter information about our facility.  To start, we are going to name our facility Stone Ridge with the Full Legal Name being Stone Ridge Medical Center.  Notice the Full Legal Name is contained under the Details tab.  Notice the Scheduler tab that we will get to next, but for now, let’s Stay on Details, and fill out the rest of the information.

Note:  The Full Legal Name is for billing purposes for when we need to submit information to insurance and for other official purposes.  The Facility Name is used in an informal manner within SOAPware and the practice.

Continue filling out address information, and Type 123456 for the NPI number.   Later, you can come back and enter all of the appropriate information for the facility.  The Place of Service is a list of predefined facility types that will be used to help describe the type of facility being created.  This value is also used later for billing purposes.  For our example facility, Click the Rural Health Clinic menu item.

After filling out this information, your display should appear similar to this screenshot:

We aren’t ready to save just yet. Click the Scheduler tab to bring up the customization dialog for Schedule.

In this Schedule customization dialog, many options are available for customization.  Most all of these options will not be covered in this demo, but a Provider must be visible before Scheduling will function.

Note:  In the Provider/Resource Management area (located at the top), you will see a list of licensed Providers for your site.  If you do not see a Provider in this list, chances are that Provider does not have a license to the Schedule.

In the Provider/Resource Management area near the top, Notice the Providers and Resources tabs. Verify the Providers tab is selected.  Click a Provider list item, and Click the Edit Provider Information button.

The next dialog offers customization of the Provider's hours of availability along with other information about the Provider.  In the bottom left of the dialog is a Visible checkbox.  The only necessary action at this time is to Click the Visible checkbox to activate the Provider for this facility.

Note:  By marking a Provider visible in a facility, it allows us to schedule appointments for this Provider.  In larger clinics with multiple Facilities and Providers, you may have Providers who don’t work at certain Facilities, and you don’t want to schedule appointments for them at that facility.

Click the OK button, and it will take us back to the Facility dialog.  At the bottom of the Facility dialog, Click the Update button.

Note:  Every facility has to have at least 1 Provider visible before we can schedule appointments for that Facility.

You should now see the facility that you created, Stone Ridge, in the Facility Manager list. Click the Close button in the bottom right.

You will now be prompted with a Select Facility dialog that shows the Stone Ridge Facility.  If you have defined multiple facilities, this dialog allows you to select the facility with which you want to work.  Since we only have one defined, Click the Select button, and Click the Stone Ridge list item to result in a display of Scheduler similar to the screenshot below.

Congratulations, you have now set up your first facility. The next section shows how to actually schedule appointments.
 

Scheduling an Appointment

Before scheduling an appointment, go through the Setting up Scheduling section of this demo to ensure scheduling is correctly set up.

There are a number of ways to schedule an appointment,, but for this guide, this demo follows the simplest path.  Begin by opening the Scheduling application:

1. Start SOAPware.
2. If this is the first time you have started SOAPware, it will open to the Charts workspace by default.  In order to switch to the Scheduling workspace, Click on SOAPware in the menu bar at the top left, and Click the Schedule menu item.

Note:  Again, at this point, you should have already setup Scheduling. If you have not set up Scheduling, please see the Set up Scheduling section above.

You should now see the Scheduling workspace.  Some areas of interest are:

1. Clickable Calendar showing the entire month

2. List of selected Providers or Resources

3. Legend giving color information

4. Time of day (increments can be changed)

5.  Name of facility

6.  The Schedule workspace

At this point,  to select the Provider to Schedule. Click the Providers name checkbox.

Notice in the Schedule, the Provider's name is now at the top.

Note:  If you have more than 1 provider selected, the Schedule will split and show all providers that have been selected.  This allows for a side by side view of schedules.

Now, an appointment can be scheduled.  Assume it’s 7am, and we just got a call for a patient that wants to come in at 8am.  In the 8am row, double-click to start the appointment creation process. This action triggers a display similar to the screenshot below that is basically the same as the Chart Rack.

Click the T tab, and then Click the Timmy Test list item in the resulting list of patient names  This action selects the patient, and another dialog appears offering detailed information about the appointment.  The most important information contained in the Make Appointment dialog is located in the Resources area. This area defines the exact time parameters for the appointment.  It also allows for the design of complex characteristics about an appointment if there is a need. it can be kept very simple.  All that is required is to select the Provider along with the start and end time of the appointment.   For now, leave this area as is, as the intent is to schedule a simple appointment for this provider.

Below Resources, Notice the Comments area.  In this area, type any information pertaining to the patient’s appointment.  This information is not used or stored in the patient's medical records, and is only used to remind the scheduling staff of specific requests or notes pertaining to the patient’s appointment. 

Now, Type The patient requires ice cream in the comments section

To save the appointment, Click the Save button at the lower right.  

In the Schedule, notice the appointment in the 8:00 am to 9 am time slot. 

Congratulations, you have now scheduled your first appointment!  

 

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