The following guide will take you through the full process of adding and completing an appointment in PPS. We'll also cover repeating, moving, and deleting an appointment.
Before you start adding appointments into your diary you may want to head to Tools > Options > Appointments Diary Options > General where you have a series of options regarding how your appointments work. Many of these relate to Clinical Notes or appointment statuses which are covered in Section 3 of this guide.
Section 1 - Adding and Modifying an Appointment
a. To add an appointment into your PPS system open your Appointments Diary via Appointments > Appointments Diary. Navigate to the relevant date using either the diary in the far right taskbar, the date dropdown field, or the navigation arrow buttons in either corner of the diary display.
b. If you can see a slot on screen in which you would like to add an appointment then double-click it to open the New Appointment screen. Alternatively, click New Appointment the top left corner of the diary screen.
c. You can configure the details of the booking from the New Appointment screen. If you've entered this screen with a slot in the diary already selected then some of the details will be pre-populated to fit that slot but you can alter these as required. To begin, choose which of your Diary Users the appointment is to be booked in with. You can then make selections based on Location, Department, and Room if you have these set up on your system. It's important to set these within the appointment if you view/filter your diary view based on any of these options so that you can see all relevant appointments. For example, if you do not choose a Department when booking an appointment but you filter your diary based on Department then that appointment will not be visible to you.
d. Should any Equipment be required for the appointment you can choose this here. Find more information on utilising the Equipment facility in PPS in the following guide: Equipment
e. You'll now need to select your client. If the relevant client is the one you have active already then press the client icon beside the Search button to automatically select them. Alternatively, press Search to open the client search screen and locate the right client.
f. Choose the relevant Appointment Type from the dropdown if you use these. Find more information on Appointment Types here. Additionally, if the appointment needs to be assigned to a Treatment Episode in the client's name then you can also select this here.
g. Towards the bottom of the screen you can record any important Notes relevant to the booking.
h. Click More to view additional appointment options and details.
From here you'll be able to view any balance outstanding on the client's account or any third-party associated. You can also view the booking source (e.g. PPS, Online Booking). Any changes made to the appointment itself will be logged in the Update Notes field. If the system detects that this is the first appointment on record for this client then the New Client box will automatically be ticked. This field allows you to easily report on first-time treatments should you need to do so. If required, you can tick or untick this box when adding or modifying the appointment. The subsequent fields in this screen cover changes made to the progress and status of the appointment which we'll cover later in the guide.
When Modifying an existing appointment you can also mark it as DNA from here. See our DNA guide for more details.
i. Click OK once you're happy with your appointment details. It's at this time that the appointment will be added to your diary and confirmations and reminders will be sent and scheduled. Should you need to review or modify this appointment at any time then double click on it from the diary and choose Modify this Appointment.
Section 2 - Moving, Repeating, and Deleting an Appointment.
a. Should you need to make alterations to the appointment date or time you can move it in one of two ways:
i. Double-click the appointment in the diary and choose Modify this Appointment. From this screen make changes to the date and/or time of the appointment as required and choose OK.
ii. In the diary screen right-click the relevant appointment and choose the Cut Appointment option to place the appointment on your clipboard. Next, navigate to the slot in the diary where the appointment should be moved, right-click the slot and choose Paste Appointment.
In either methods above you should ensure a new confirmation is sent out if one is required as this will not always happen automatically.
b. In some instances a client may wish to book a series of appointments. The Appointment Repeat function is an easy way to schedule these in one go. You can do this at the time of booking or modifying an appointment via the Repeat button in the appointment screen. If you wish to simply duplicate an appointment then right-click it in the diary and choose Copy Appointment. You can then right-click a vacant slot in the diary and choose Paste Appointment to add a copy of the existing booking.
From this screen make the necessary selections for the repeat bookings including how often they should occur and for how long. You can determine the date range manually by choosing Until and entering the date or choose For and choose a set number of days, weeks, months, or years to repeat the appointment forward. Once you're happy with these options choose OK. You'll be returned to the Appointment screen, choose OK again to save and create the repeat bookings.
c. In the event of an appointment needing to be cleared from the diary you have two options:
i. Delete the appointment. Deleting an appointment will remove the record from the diary and the client log, it will also cease to show in any reports. Details of the appointment will only remain present in the system audit. To delete an appointment select it in the diary with a single click and choose Delete at the top of the diary window.
ii. Mark the appointment as DNA (Did Not Attend) - The DNA function allows you to specify at any time that the appointment will not be fulfilled. When marking an appointment as DNA you have the option to re-open the slot it is currently occupying. This allows you to make space for replacement bookings while also keeping a clear record of the unattended appointment. Mark an appointment as DNA by double-clicking it in the diary and choosing Client Did Not Attend. You can find more information on DNA's including DNA charges and Reasons for Non-Attendance in the following guide: DNAs
Section 3 - Appointment Status and Completing an Appointment
a. In the top right corner of your Appointments diary you'll see a series of colour-coded icons as shown below.
Each of these represents a status that can be assigned to your appointments:
- Green: Arrived. The client has arrived for their appointment and is waiting to be seen.
- Orange: Being Seen. The client is now being seen by the Diary User conducting their appointment.
- Purple: Completed. The Appointment is finished. This option will open the Appointment Complete screen, details of which can be found below.
- Red: Did Not Attend. The client did not attend their appointment. This opens the Did Not Attend screen.
Select an appointment in the diary and click the relevant status button to set the appointment to that status. Alternatively, double-click an appointment to access all of these status options.
If you record the statuses of your appointments then you can use the Appointments Statistics Report to view the average times between Arriving > Being Seen and Being Seen > Completed. This is accessible via Reports > Reports & Mail Merge > Appointments.
b. When you come to Complete an appointment, either via the purple icon or the Complete option when you double click an appointment, you'll be presented with the Appointment Complete screen.
From here you can close the appointment by choosing to mark it as completed. You can also raise charges for the appointment and choose to which stage (invoice, fully paid) that charge should go. You can find out more about the PPS billing process here: Billing.
Click Charge To: to switch between raising charges to the client themselves or an associated third party.
If the Appointment Type being completed has a standard charge associated to this then this charge will already be present here. You can find out more about Appointment Types here. Choose Cash Desk to carry the appointment charge forward and have the option to raise additional charges at the same time.
If the appointment is to be paid for as part of the client's Treatment Plan then choose the Bill from Treatment Plan option.
If the client would like to book a follow-up then use the Make Another Appointment option to do this. Additionally, if a follow-up correspondence is associated to this Appointment Type then schedule this here.