Appointments

Appointments overview

Open Appointments from the main menu to book and manage the calendar. Always set practice and location(s) in the header first—without a location selected, you see a reminder to select locations.

When permitted, two tabs appear: General Appointments and Services. Views include Month, Week, Day, and Agenda, plus Today, a date picker, and Book Appointment. Day and Week are best for seeing Available bands and booking into open slots. Wrong location in the header is the most common reason the calendar looks empty.

General Appointments vs Services

General and Services are different booking products. Do not mix their setup pages.

General Appointments uses Visit Types (New Consult, Follow Up, and so on) and can be Office Visit or Telemedicine when the Visit Type is marked for telemedicine. Services uses Clinic Services Types for lab/imaging-style appointments and is office only—telemedicine is not offered on Services.

Practice → Service Types are eligibility codes only—not for booking calendars. If you are booking a doctor consult, stay on General and use Visit Types. If you are booking a lab/imaging service slot, use Services and Clinic Services Types.

How location hours work on the calendar

Day/Week view shows when the location is open, on break, or closed. Practice Hours come from Practices → Scheduling; Break Time is lunch or other breaks from the same tab; off/closed days are days the location is not working.

Provider and service Available windows should fall inside these hours for normal slots. Location hours are the foundation—without them, Next Available and many General bookings fail for that date.

How provider Visit Type windows work

Green Available bands come from the provider’s Visit Type schedule—not from creating a Visit Type alone.

If a Visit Type is not assigned to the provider, it will not appear when booking. Duration often comes from the Visit Type or a provider override. Available bands are per provider column and Visit Type: assignment decides which types appear on the book form, and Provider Schedule decides when green windows show. Location hours must exist or Next Available and normal slots fail.

How service schedules work

Each Clinic Service Type has its own weekly schedule—separate from provider Visit Type windows. The Services tab uses those service-type windows.

Providers who are not assigned that service will not see it on the book form. Service catalogs and schedules live under Practices → Clinic Services Types; provider assignment for services is under Practices → Users.

Filters and calendar views

Filters narrow the grid. Views change how much time you see. Default is often Day.

On General, filter by Patient, Select Providers, Status, and Visit Type. On Services, filter by Patient, Status, and Select Service Types (columns are service types).

Day and Week show the time grid with practice hours, available bands, breaks, unavailability, and bookings. Month and Agenda summarize. Only some general events support drag/resize; service events are often fixed on the grid. Clear Visit Type or Provider filters if the calendar looks emptier than expected.

How the schedule is displayed

Colors and bands tell you what kind of time you are looking at. Always confirm header location—wrong location looks like an empty or wrong schedule.

Light blue Practice Hours means the location is open. Light green Available is a provider open window (often shows Visit Type name). Gray Break Time is lunch/breaks from location Scheduling. Gray Unavailable / Unavailable Time is provider unavailability. Booked appointments show patient and visit/service type, using Visit Type color when set. The Services calendar layers service-type available windows and booked service visits.

Available slots vs booked slots

Available means open time you can book. Booked means a visit already exists.

Available slots sit inside location hours and provider/service windows, and outside breaks and unavailability. Clicking an available area usually offers Book Appointment. Overlapping another booking may show Slot Already Booked with Book Another after confirm.

Next Available

Next Available searches forward for the next open slot for a provider (General) or service (Services). It shows Searching… while running and searches up to about three months ahead.

On success, it jumps to Day view and highlights Available (Found) - Click to Book. Click that band to open the book modal for that time. If none is found, you see No available appointments found in the next 3 months…. Errors like No Practice schedule found… mean set Practices → Scheduling first. The action needs appointment next-available permission (and the Services equivalent).

Unavailability: how to mark and what it means

Unavailability blocks a provider’s open time without changing location hours. Use Mark Unavailable from a slot context menu or provider column when you have permission.

Those times show as gray Unavailable / Unavailable Time, and normal Available bands are hidden under unavailability. Staff can still force-book after confirmation. Breaks are different—they come from location Scheduling, not unavailability. Longer ranges can also be managed under Practices → Users → Provider Unavailability.

How to book a General Appointment

Book a provider / Visit Type visit on the General Appointments calendar. Only Visit Types assigned to the selected provider appear in the Visit Type list.

Start from Book Appointment, a free slot, or a Next Available found band. Duration defaults from Visit Type or provider override. Telemedicine Visit Types may create video join links when enabled. Payment Insurance vs Self Pay changes check-in and claim behavior later on Dashboard and Billing.

How to book a Services appointment

Book lab/imaging-style visits on the Services tab using Clinic Services Types. Telemedicine is not offered on Services.

The Service Type list comes from Clinic Services Types assigned to the provider. Each service needs its own Schedule for clean Available windows. A soft warning may appear if the service is not scheduled for the date—you can often still proceed.

Booking on off days, breaks, unavailable, or outside hours

EHR360 allows many override bookings after confirmation. Train staff when to refuse even if the system allows Book Anyway.

Off-day, outside practice hours, break time, and unavailable slot bookings prompt Yes, Book Anyway (or Book Anyway). Slot Already Booked offers Yes, Book Another. The modal may say Selected time is outside practice working hours… You can still book…

Many General creates hard-fail when there is no active location schedule for that date, or when the date is outside Effective From/To. Services create is often looser about the location-schedule check. Double-booking the same patient/slot may be allowed after confirm.

Insurance vs Self Pay when booking

Payment on the book form chooses the visit payment path. Insurance (default) keeps eligibility and claim bootstrap paths at check-in. Self Pay means the patient pays for this visit without the insurance claim path.

Self Pay is not the Billing claims / ERA module. Dashboard and Billing guides cover day-of payment and claims after booking.

How to set a provider’s Visit Type schedule

Before staff can book reliably, each provider needs Visit Types assigned and a Provider Schedule. Location hours must already exist under Practices → Scheduling.

Creating a Visit Type on the Visit Types tab is not enough. Assignment decides which types appear on the book form. Provider Schedule creates the green Available bands on General Appointments. Keep provider windows inside location open hours and outside lunch breaks.

How to reschedule an appointment

Reschedule is done from Dashboard Today’s Schedule using the status pill → Update Status → Re Schedule. The old visit becomes Re Scheduled and EHR360 creates a new appointment for the new date and time.

You can also open the same Update Status flow from a No Show visit when you need to bring the patient back. Editing fields in View Details → Appointment is for correcting visit details while status still allows updates—it is not the same as moving the visit to a new slot.

If you only need a brand-new booking instead of a linked reschedule, cancel (or leave No Show) and book again on Appointments → General.

How to mark an appointment as No Show

No Show is a status action from Dashboard Today’s Schedule. Open the status pill → Update Status → No Show, then confirm. Optional No Show reason can be entered when the modal asks for it.

EHR360 can also auto-mark some Scheduled visits as No Show after the appointment end time (location timezone), depending on clinic settings and system flags. After No Show, normal check-in / rooming buttons stop. From No Show you can often open Update Status again to Re Schedule or restore to Scheduled when permitted.

No Show is not the same as Cancel (patient/clinic cancelled) and not the same as Delete (permanently remove the row).

How to cancel an appointment

Cancel changes the visit status to Cancelled and keeps the history. It does not permanently delete the appointment row.

From Dashboard, use the status pill → Update Status → Cancel, enter a cancellation reason, and confirm. You can also cancel from View Details → Appointment when Cancel Appointment is shown (often while still Scheduled).

After Cancel, day-of buttons stop. To give the patient a new time, book a new visit on Appointments or use Re Schedule from an eligible status flow when available.

How to delete an appointment

Delete permanently removes the appointment. Prefer Cancel or No Show when you need a status history for reporting. Use Delete only when the visit should not remain in the schedule at all.

On Dashboard, use the trash / delete control on the schedule card (when your role allows Delete Appointment). On the Appointments calendar, delete from the appointment details/actions when shown. Confirm the “Are you sure…” prompt—this is not the same as Cancel.

Services appointments may require the Services delete permission. If delete is missing, you may only have Cancel permission.

How to add appointment notes (visit notes)

EHR360 does not have a separate button labeled “assign patient notice.” For visit-level comments, use Additional Notes on the appointment. For clinical documentation, use Clinical Notes on the patient chart (or the note icon on the Dashboard card).

When booking, fill optional Reason for Visit and Additional Notes before Create Appointment. After booking, open Dashboard → View Details → Appointment (or the appointment details from the calendar) and update Additional Notes while the status still allows edits, then save with Update Appointment.

If you meant a clinical note for the provider to review, open the note icon on the Dashboard card or Patients → Clinical Notes. Sending a note for review / assigning a reviewer is part of the clinical notes workflow—not Additional Notes on the booking form. For messaging the patient, use Messages.

How to send a consent form

Staff can email consent form links from the Patients list or from the patient chart Documents → Consent Forms. Consent forms are configured under Administration → Practice Forms (Consent Forms tab).

Select the correct practice and location in the header first. The patient needs a usable email for list send. Only Active consent forms for that location (and visit-type rules when used) are available to send. Booking can also auto-attach eligible consents to a new appointment so they appear at check-in and in the patient portal without a separate email—but ad-hoc Send is still available when you need a packet now.

How to sign a consent form

Patients sign after login from the email/portal consent link. Staff can also capture an in-clinic signature from the chart Consent Forms area or during Check-In when forms are pending.

Patient path: open the emailed `/consent-forms?link_id=…` link (or portal Consent Forms), complete fields, draw/sign, and submit. Pending consents can block Complete Check-In until submitted.

Staff path: open the patient chart → Documents → Consent Forms → open an available or pending form → sign and submit (in-clinic capture). During Dashboard Check-In, complete the Consent Forms step before finishing check-in. Signed forms appear under Signed Consent Forms for view/print when permitted.

Edit vs cancel vs reschedule vs No Show vs delete

These actions sound similar but do different jobs. Use the dedicated how-to articles below for full steps.

Edit visit fields in View Details → Appointment while status allows. Cancel keeps a Cancelled history. Reschedule marks the old visit Re Scheduled and creates a new appointment. No Show records that the patient did not attend. Delete permanently removes the appointment row—use only when cancel/history is not what you want.

Booking vs Dashboard day-of

Appointments and Dashboard show the same visits for different jobs.

Appointments is for planning and booking—Available/booked/unavailable layers, Next Available, and Mark Unavailable. Dashboard is for Today’s Schedule cards: Check-in, Rooming, With Provider, Checkout, Cancel / Reschedule / No Show, and Delete. Dashboard View Details also holds Billing and Eligibility tabs when permitted.

Common issues

Most booking problems are missing setup—not a broken calendar. Confirm header location(s) first, then walk Visit Types → assignment → Provider Schedule → location Scheduling.

If Visit Type is missing on the book form, assign Visit Types on the provider. Create missing types at `/visit-types`. If a service is not bookable, check Clinic Services Types Schedule or provider assignment. Next Available failures usually mean missing location Scheduling or provider/service windows.

Empty green slots often mean the provider is off, marked unavailable, or outside location hours. Breaks look like unavailability but come from location Scheduling; unavailability is provider-marked. Do not confuse Service Types (eligibility) with Clinic Services Types (booking). Book Anyway is allowed by the product—train staff when to refuse.