Appointment Type / Procedure Editor

Use the Appointment Type / Procedure editor to maintain your list of patient appointment types. You can link Workflows to the procedures to trigger tasks such as printing letters or applying miscellaneous charges when an appointment is scheduled or processed, assign Patient Reward point values to appointments, and classify appointments for calculations used by your practice statistical analysis reports and graphs.

The term is "Appointment Type" for Edge Specialist users and "Procedure" for Edge Cloud users.

Appointment Type / Procedure Editor Security

Scheduling Editor Security

You can allow / prevent Edge Cloud operators from accessing any of the Scheduling editors. To choose the level of access, go to the Scheduling security group, and set the appropriate rights for the Scheduling Editors. See "Security Editor" for details about using the editor.

Appointment Length Lock

You can use Edge Cloud security to prevent the appointment length from being changed from its default time as it is being scheduled or edited. This feature has two levels. First, the Scheduling section of your Security editor can prevent operators from changing the length of any appointment. Second, the Appointment Procedure / Type editor can prevent anyone from changing the length of individual appointment procedure types, regardless of the Security editor settings. If you do not have access to changing the appointment length, that field will be dimmed when you schedule or edit a patient appointment.

Appointment Type Creation / Deletion Security

In addition, for those operators that have access to the editor, you can choose to allow / prevent them from creating and deleting appointment type / procedures. This assures that your list of appointment type / procedure remains stable practice-wide, while allowing for updated scheduling protocols as they arise.

To do so, set up the Scheduling section of your Security editor to allow / prevent operators from accessing all Scheduling editors (which includes the Appointment Type / Procedure editor). You can then allow / prevent Edge Cloud operators from creating and deleting appointment type / procedures. See "Security Editor" for details about using the editor.

Open the Appointment Type / Procedure Editor

Select Editors from the Tools section of the Home ribbon bar. Then, from the Scheduling section, open the Appointment Type / Procedure editor. (You can also use the Search field to look for the editor you want to work with.) Then, enter your Edge Cloud credentials.

Security Notice - Only operators assigned to a security model that allows full access to the Scheduling Editors setting of the Scheduling group can access this editor. See "Security Editor" for details.

Create or Edit Appointment Type / Procedures

Create a New Record

At the top of the editor window, select to create either a Scheduler appointment or a Recall appointment. Then, type a description, code, and appointment length (in minutes) in the New section of the window, and click Add.

Security Notice - Only operators assigned to a security model that allows full access to the Scheduling Editors as well as full access to the Create or Delete Appointment Types setting can create new records. Both settings are found in the Scheduling security group. See "Security Editor" for details.

Permanant Record Created - Once you create a record, you cannot delete it. You can, however, flag it Inactive. Records you flag as Inactive are not available for general use, but they remain in your system for reporting and other data collection needs. In addition, you can toggle records back to Active whenever needed.

New Record Note - Be sure you have selected the appropriate type before clicking Add. Once created, you cannot change whether the appointment type / procedure is for Scheduler or Recall appointments.

Select Existing Record

Your list of existing records appears at the left. Click the record to work with, then review and edit the details at the right. If not all your records appear in the list, enable the Display Inactive option.

Procedure Details

Use the Details section of the window to define how the selected appointment type / procedure should be scheduled. The details available depend on whether you are working with a Scheduler or Recall appointment type / procedure.

Security Notice - Only operators assigned to a security model that allows full access to the Scheduling Editors setting of the Scheduling group can edit these details. See "Security Editor" for details.

Scheduler Appointment Details

Description - Type the full in-office description for the appointment. This description appears in the scheduler appointment hover and in several areas of the patient folder.

Code - Enter an appointment code or abbreviation.

Length - Enter the number of minutes to schedule for this appointment. You will notice the Doctor Time fields, described below, are prepared for you according to the length you enter.

Colors - Set up the colors that will be displayed when this appointment type / procedure is scheduled. Before an appointment is scheduled, your grid template displays the colors of the class assigned to that cell (if any). After an appointment is scheduled, your grid template displays the colors of the appointment type / procedure scheduled to that cell. Thus, you might want to coordinate your classification colors and associated appointment colors. (See "Classes Editor" for details about setting up your classes and colors.)

Prior / Future Search Limits - Enter the number of days before and after the Smart Scheduler search date to include when searching for openings for this appointment type / procedure.

Start / End Times - Enter the earliest and latest times you want to schedule this appointment type / procedure. These times will be the default when you search for this appointment type / procedure with your Smart Scheduler, but you can change the times for individual appointment searches as needed. When a new patient uses Online Scheduling to book an appointment with you, the Start and End time settings of the procedure in your Appointment Type / Procedure editor are taken into consideration when searching for available appointment openings.

Inactive / Active Toggle - Once you create a record, you cannot delete it. You can, however, flag it Inactive. Records you flag as Inactive are not available for general use, but they remain in your system for reporting and other data collection needs. In addition, you can toggle records back to Active whenever needed.

Open Start - Enable this option to require that the first cell of this appointment type / procedure be scheduled to a cell flagged as Open Start. (You can flag cells as Open Start in your scheduler templates, and toggle this option as you search for appointments as needed.)

Type - (Statistical category) Select the general classification for this appointment type / procedure. This setting determines how the appointment will be categorized in certain statistical reports, such as the Deband Analysis report, Procedure Analysis report, Starts and Exams report, and your Practice Monitor and Chart widgets.

Exclude From Arriving Section of Patient Tracker - Enable this option to omit patients with this appointment type / procedure from appearing in the Arriving section of your Patient Tracker. See "Patient Tracker" for details.

Prevent Appointment Length From Being Changed - Enable this option to prevent all Edge Cloud operators, regardless of their Security editor settings, from changing the appointment length as they schedule or edit a patient appointment for this procedure.

Classes - Click Add, then select a class of grid cells that this appointment type / procedure should be scheduled to. If it can be scheduled to multiple classes, you can add additional classes as needed. You can also select a currently assigned class, and click Remove. If you do not select any classes, the Smart Scheduler will only return Scheduler cells that have no class assigned to them when you search for a time slot for this appointment. (Use the Class Editor to create your list of classes, and flag cells for certain classes with your Template Editor.)

Recall Appointments

Description - Type the full in-office description for the appointment. This description appears in the scheduler appointment hover and in several areas of the patient folder.

Code - Enter an appointment code or abbreviation.

Days Prior to Appointment to Auto-Process - If you enter a number in this field, when you schedule a regular appointment for a patient that has a recall appointment within the number of days you specified, the recall appointment will default to being processed as "Kept".

Reminders and Appointment Card Text

Use this section of your Appointment Type / Procedure editor to select the reminders to associate with the selected appointment type / procedure, and define how you want the appointment type / procedure to appear on your patients' appointment cards.

Length - (Scheduler appointments only. Not available for Recall appointments.) Type the appointment length you want to print on the appointment card, which is not necessarily the number of minutes you actually schedule for this appointment.

Description - Type a description in layman's terms so the patient understands what will be happening.

Procedure Reminder - Type a reminder, or select one from your list to print on the appointment card.This will be the default reminder for this appointment, but you can change it as you schedule an appointment if needed. (See "Appointment Reminders Editor" for details about creating the lists for both Scheduler and Recall appointments.) The patient will see this reminder on appointment cards.

Internal Appointment Reminder - Type a reminder, or select one from your list to print on your appointment day sheet and other internal reference sources. This will be the default reminder for this appointment, but you can change it as you schedule an appointment if needed. (See "Appointment Reminders Editor" for details about creating your reminder lists.) The patient will not see this reminder.

Events and Workflows

You can select to trigger a workflow and / or update the patient's milestone dates when you process this appointment.

Appointment Workflows - Select the processing status you want to work with, then choose an existing workflow, or use the Workflow Wizard icon to create a new workflow to assign to this record. When you process this appointment type / procedure, the assigned workflow (if any) will be triggered automatically.

Workflows you assign here are specific to this appointment type / procedure: You can use the workflow Trigger editor to assign workflows to appointment triggers that are not procedure-specific.

Kept Appointment Auto-Events - (Scheduler appointments only. Not available for Recall appointments.) Enable one or more of the Kept Appointment date options to automatically set the corresponding milestone date in the patient folder to the date you processed this appointment type / procedure as Kept. Keeping these dates updated is important for generating accurate results in several system reports.

Doctor Time

(Scheduler appointments only. Not available for Recall appointments.)

Use the Doctor Time section of the window to identify when the doctor's presence is required during this appointment. These settings are used for calculating available doctor time in your scheduling grids.

Time Interval - Enter the number of minutes you consider a "unit" of time in your appointment schedule. The number of rows in the Doctor Time table adjusts automatically, according to the length of time you have entered for the appointment type / procedure.

Enable Doctor Time - Put a checkmark beside each row of the Doctor Time table to indicate when the doctor's presence is required during this appointment type / procedure. The total amount of doctor time required for this appointment type / procedure appears at the bottom of the table.

Reward Points

(Scheduler appointments only. Not available for Recall appointments.)

Use the Reward Points section of the Appointment Type / Procedure editor to enter the number of reward points a patient earns or loses when the appointment procedure is processed. Enter positive numbers to apply points, and negative numbers to deduct points from the patient's reward point total. For example, you might award 5 points when a patient keeps an adjustment visit, and deduct 5 points when an adjustment visit is missed.

Default Treatment

(Scheduler appointments only. Not available for Recall appointments.)

Use the Default Treatment section of your Appointment Type / Procedure editor to assign default dental procedures to your appointment appointment type / procedures. You can optionally provide a written narrative that can be imported into the patient's Treatment Hub when this appointment type / procedure is scheduled.

Linked Procedures - Use the Add and Delete buttons in the Default Treatment section of the window to link / remove dental procedures or procedure groups to this appointment type / procedure. When the appointment type / procedure is scheduled, the procedure(s) you link here will automatically be added to the patient's planned procedures, which can be viewed and edited from the Scheduler and the patient's Treatment Chart. (See "Dental Procedures Editor" for details about setting up your dental procedures.)

Narrative - Type a detailed description for this appointment type / procedure. Then, when this appointment type / procedure is scheduled for a patient, or is the next suggested Treatment Sequence item, you can import this narrative into a new treatment chart record in the patient's Treatment Hub. See "Treatment Chart Records" for details.

Save Changes

Click Save in your Quick Access toolbar or File ribbon bar (or press Ctrl+S on your keyboard) to save any changes you have made.

Print Procedure List

Run a Procedure List report to review the list of active appointment and recall procedures you have created for your patients. The grid cell colors you have chosen for each procedure are included on the report, so it is best to print it with a color printer. Procedures that can be scheduled as recalls are indicated with an "x" in the Recall column of the report. All other procedures are for regularly scheduled appointments. Only active records are included in the report: Any items flagged Inactive in the editor are omitted. If you have Edge Specialist, the records for both orthodontics and pediatric dentistry are included in the report. See "Appointment / Recall Procedure List" for details.