Setting Up Chief Complaints & Appointment Types

This article will explain how Chief Complaints, Appointment Types, Appointment Series, and the First Available Appointment feature work together to most efficiently schedule a patient appointment. 

The Chief Complaint is the main reason for the patient visit. When you choose a Chief Complaint, an Appointment Type and visit duration will automatically be set based on that provider's Chief Complaint settings. To learn more about how to create and customize the Chief Complaints, please follow this link: Create and Customize Chief Complaints.

Since the Appointment Type will automatically pull based on the Chief Complaint, you will want to set up your Appointment Types prior to your Chief Complaints. This is done from the Practice settings on the PM or the EHR. Appointment Types are another way to categorize/organize appointments visually on the schedule as they control the vertical colored strip to the left of the patient name on the scheduled appointment. The Appointment Type will also determine whether the system puts a patient in the Cosmetic Module and if that appointment will only show up on a Resource schedule. To learn about Appointment Types please follow this link: Appointment Types.

Once Appointment Type is created you can create a New Appointment Series.  To use this, select New Appointment Series in the upper right dropdown. Once you add the parameters and save your appointment series you can set up your First Available Appointment.  To learn about New Appointment Series please follow this link: New Appointment Series.

The First Available Appointment times are based on the duration of the Appointment Types attached to the Chief Complaint (this feature is accessible via the button at the top of the Appointment Card). These listed times will become unavailable as the patient is scheduled and timeslots are filled.  To learn about the First Available Appointment please follow this link: First Available Appointment