Binary Spectrum, a Microsoft Gold certified partner and a member of the Sun Partner Advantage Program has years of expertise in designing and developing custom appointment management software and HL7 integration solutions for Electronic medical billing software systems. Outsource Appointment Scheduler software to Binary spectrum and get quick results. In an effort to present our understanding and expertise in the Health care software development space we have prepared these articles. Don't forget to browse through our casestudies section and also our FAQ sections.

Physicians Appointment Scheduler

In the hustle of daily life, physicians fail to maintain a right schedule to alert and view the appointments for the day, leading to missing of appointments and over booking of patients. Physicians can rightly space their patients to meet with them for the required treatment when scheduled properly, for which Binary spectrum creates a scheduler application which enables a physician to schedule his appointments and maintain a record of his daily activities allowing him to space out all work and his daily life in the right way.

The appointment scheduler system enables a physician to log into the EMR and create his day’s activities leaving the information viewable by the person taking appointments for the physician, the appointment scheduler allows the resources to be rightly and efficiently used, while there is shortage of resources and allocations, allowing the physician to deliver quality time to his/her patients.

The apointment scheduler allows scheduling resources and physicians, enabling a smooth flow of work through the entire healthcare network of the facility, resources and the physician.

Features

Healthcare centers need their resources and providers being utilized in the best possible way to offer the best health care to the patients. the Appointment Scheduler allows effective scheduling and usage of resources and physicians.

Appointment Scheduler Setup

An Appointment scheduler set up allows the provider to configure their availability and status for ex: A physician visiting a practice thrice a week for 3 hrs would have to allocate the time and days of the week he would be available in order to take appointments.

The physician has the option to select the kind of appointment he would like to take on the days that he would be available and the duration for the same; this allows the front desk staff to allocate the time slots efficiently and plan out the kind of appointments and number of patients that can be booked for a day.

The scheduler set up allows the provider to configure private schedules or events where in he can provide details of his unavailability. Provider while configuring his unavailability can also choose to allow booking of appointments during outside hours. In the other case where the provider is unable to take any appointments, he can assign a covering provider to take care of his/her patients.

In cases of modifying an appointment the physician would be alerted on the same as the appointments booked in these time slots would have to be rescheduled to a different time slot or marked as wait-listed for unavailability of time slot.

Booking an Appointment

This feature allows the office staff to view the schedule that is configured for a provider and book appointments as per provider’s availability. The staff will also be able to choose the kind of appointment for a patient and assign a status as per the pre configuration that was created through scheduler set up module.

When a patient intends to meet a physician for a general check up calls up the practice and the front desk operator logs into the appointment scheduler software within the Electronic medical records application-EMR and searches for the physician who the patient intends to meet and views the availability of the physician and books an appointment accordingly, while if the required time slot is unavailable the patient is suggested different time slots of the physician’s availability and thereon the appointment is booked, the appointment can also be booked as a waiting list as the patient would be confirmed later depending on the availability of free slots.

While booking an appointment, the following are considered:

• The duration of the visit
• Depending on the reason of visit the time slot would vary.
• The reason
• New Patient, follow-up, surgery etc
• The site
• The facility/ place of service the physician would visit the patient.
• Status
• Booked, Confirmed, Roomed, and Cancelled, No-show etc.

These details are captured so that the physician, the patient and the resources are rightly accommodated. When appointments are booked they could be searched or viewed either by entering the patient’s name or the provider or the appointment date and time which makes search easy and efficient in finding the required data immediately.

Authorization

The appointment scheduler software application has a link to authorization manager to request authorization to patients who need authorization from the insurance company for their medical reasons.
This feature allows the administrator to view the details as follows:-

• Service requested
• Requested provider
• Requested date
• Received date
• Insurance authorization Number
• Practice authorization number
• Also allows to assign potential dates of service to authorization numbers
• Link authorized numbers to a particular appointment
• When authorization number is added to an appointment, the system shall change the status to indicate readiness of the patient for visit through a specific color.
• Date(s) of service
• Automatically add authorization number and service to super bill
• The user shall also set an Alert for when the next request for authorization need to be triggered, depending on the visits counter or the date of expiry of the authorization number.

Appointment Modification

Appointment data can be modified with respect to date or time through rescheduling Or change the reason of appointment schedule. The existing wait listed appointment could be modified to confirm on the availability of the required time slot by re-setting the appointment status to confirmed or cancel, In case of appointments being cancelled for varied reasons.

The statuses available on the scheduler are-

• Scheduled
• Unconfirmed
• Confirmed in person
• Confirmed by message
• Missed
• Arrived
• Checked in
• Roomed
• Seeing provider
• Procedure
• Checked out

Alerts

The appointment scheduler alerts the user when the appointments are over booked for patient’s intending to meet the physician at the same time, the appointment would be booked alerting the user that there is an existing appointment, on confirming the alert message the user would be able to proceed with the process of booking the appointment.

The scheduler allows the administrator and the physician to check on reports of new patients and number of confirmed and cancelled appointments, type of appointments for a chosen date. The alerts can be used to provide information like the patient’s authorization status, his finance history, if any lab reports are expected / received for the patient. These alerts basically prompt the practice user with relevant information Confirmed in person.

• Confirmed in person
• Confirmed by message
• Missed
• Arrived
• Checked in
• Roomed
• Seeing provider
• Procedure
• Checked out

Our role

Binary spectrum has developed Scheduler with the above mentioned features and more, enabling the physician to rightly configure their availability and unavailability. With the scheduler the provider can have their schedules captured in the system with few mouse clicks and have their focus more on rendering quality service have to their patients and also have their work organized.