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Appointments are the starting point for every patient visit. They reserve a time slot with a specific doctor, department, or service unit, and track the patient through their visit from arrival to completion. This page covers everything from setting up doctor schedules to booking appointments and managing the day’s queue.

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Before You Start

  • The Healthcare Practitioner record for each doctor must exist.
  • The doctor’s Practitioner Schedule must be set up with available time slots.
  • At least one Appointment Type must be configured (e.g., General Consultation, Follow-up).
  • The patient must be registered before booking.

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Step 1: Set Up Doctor Schedules

Before any appointments can be booked, you need to tell the system when each doctor is available.
  1. Go to Healthcare workspace → Masters card → Practitioner Schedule → New
Practitioner Schedule form showing schedule name, allow video conferencing toggle, and time slots table with day, start time, end time, and duration columns
  1. Give the schedule a name (e.g., “Dr. Meera - Mon-Fri Morning”)
  2. In the Time Slots table, add one row for each block of availability:
  1. Save the schedule
  2. Link the schedule to the doctor: open the Healthcare Practitioner record → Practitioner Schedules table → add the schedule you just created

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Step 2: Book an Appointment

  1. Go to Healthcare workspace → Consultation card → Patient Appointment → New
Patient Appointment form showing patient name, appointment type, practitioner, department, appointment for dropdown, date, and time fields
  1. Fill in the appointment details:
  1. Click Save
The system sends an appointment confirmation SMS to the patient’s mobile number automatically.

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Step 3: Patient Arrives - Check In

When the patient arrives at the clinic:
  1. Find their appointment in the Patient Appointment list
  2. Change the status from Confirmed to Checked In
  3. Save
The appointment appears in the “Open Appointments” count on the workspace. The nursing team knows to record vital signs.

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Step 4: Record Vital Signs

After check-in, the nurse records the patient’s measurements before the consultation:
  1. Go to Healthcare workspace → Consultation card → Vital Signs → New
  2. Link to the patient and appointment
  3. Record temperature, blood pressure, pulse, height, weight
  4. Save
The vital signs become part of the patient’s permanent history and are visible to the doctor when they open the consultation.

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Step 5: Doctor Sees the Patient

When the doctor is ready, they open the Patient Appointment record and click Create Patient Encounter to start the consultation record. See the Consultations page for the full consultation process.

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Appointment Statuses

The daily automation runs every night and updates statuses for appointments that passed without being attended.

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Online Appointment Booking (Patient Portal)

Patients with portal accounts can book their own appointments without calling the clinic. What patients can do online:
  • Choose a doctor or department
  • Pick a date and available time slot
  • Select the appointment type
  • View their upcoming appointments
How it works behind the scenes: When a patient submits a booking on the portal, a Patient Appointment record is created in the system with Status = Scheduled. The receptionist can see and manage it like any other appointment. For setup instructions, see Patient Portal.

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Video Consultation Appointments

Doctors can offer video consultations via Google Meet. To enable this:
  1. The Practitioner Schedule must have Allow Video Conferencing ticked
  2. When booking the appointment, tick Add Video Conferencing
  3. A Google Meet link is generated and stored on the appointment
  4. The patient and doctor both receive the meeting link
The doctor and patient join the same link at the appointment time for the virtual visit.

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Cancelling an Appointment

  1. Open the Patient Appointment record
  2. Change the status to Cancelled
  3. Save
Cancelled appointments are excluded from the Open Appointments count and from billing.

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Field Guide: Patient Appointment

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Reports and Monitoring

  • Open Appointments number card: real-time count of patients waiting
  • Appointments to Bill number card: appointments completed but not yet invoiced
  • Patient Appointments chart on workspace: daily booking volume
  • Patient Appointment Analytics report: detailed analysis by practitioner, department, type

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Troubleshooting

No time slots appear when booking an appointment The doctor does not have a Practitioner Schedule set up, or the schedule is not linked to their Healthcare Practitioner record. Set up the schedule and link it to the doctor. Appointment confirmation SMS was not received by the patient Check that the mobile number is correct on the patient record and that the Appointment Confirmation setting is turned on in Healthcare Settings. A past appointment still shows as Open The appointment was never closed after the consultation. Open the appointment and set the status to Closed. The daily automation also updates statuses, but manual closure is faster. The patient wants to change their appointment time Open the appointment record, update the date and time, and save. A new confirmation SMS is sent automatically.

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Best Practices

  • Always book against a specific doctor rather than “Department” when possible - it prevents confusion about who is responsible for the patient
  • Check the Open Appointments count at the start of each hour during a busy session - if it stays high, ask if a doctor needs support
  • Cancel appointments proactively when you know a patient will not come - it keeps the “Appointments to Bill” count accurate
  • Use Appointment Types with billing items attached so that the invoice amount fills in automatically - this reduces billing errors