Find a time and fill cancellations

Find an open time#

Click Find a Time at the top of the Schedule page. From the referral queue or a chart's Episodes tab, Find a Time opens the same search for that patient.

1. Choose the Location and, if you know it, the Appointment type. The type fills in the Length (minutes).
2. Choose a Provider, or leave Any provider and pick a Discipline to search every active provider of that discipline. Without a discipline, the type's discipline is used; a type for every discipline searches every provider with hours at the location.
3. Set the From and To dates (up to 31 days) and, if the patient has preferences, tick the Days and Times of day that suit them. Morning is before noon, afternoon is noon to 5:00 PM and evening is after 5:00 PM.
4. Click Find Times.

NeatPractice lists the times when the provider is available at that location (their weekly hours, minus time off, holidays and the location's closed hours) and not already booked anywhere. When you search for a patient, times they are already booked are left out too. Times inside the patient's availability come first, then times with the patient's preferred providers in their order (marked Preferred), then providers on the patient's care team (marked Care team), then the earliest. Times outside the patient's availability come last, marked Outside availability. Times start on the quarter hour and are shown in the location's time zone.

When you leave Any provider and search for a patient, providers who are not accepting new patients are left out unless they treat (or treated) that patient. A provider you pick by name is always searched.

Hours that a provider keeps for certain appointment types offer times only when you search for one of those types. When you search for a patient whose primary payer requires enrolled providers, providers who are not enrolled with that payer on the day are left out. Turn on Include providers not enrolled with the patient's payer to see them too, marked Not enrolled with payer.

Times also leave room for preparation and cleanup: the chosen type's own, and that of the provider's appointments before and after. A provider's appointment at another location, or at a patient's home or school, keeps its travel time free too. A provider who connected their own calendar through calendar sync offers no time over a busy event there.

Click Book on a time to open a new appointment with that time, provider, location and type, and the patient when you searched for one. The booking checks still run before it saves, so a time that was taken in the meantime is caught.

If you change any search field after Find Times, the list says it is from your last search and Book is turned off until you click Find Times again. Changing the type fills in its length; a length you typed stays until you pick another type. If locations, appointment types or providers cannot load, the dialog names what failed; click Retry.

Suggested times while booking#

A new appointment lists Suggested times under When and where once you choose the Type and Location. They are the next open times in the two weeks from the chosen date (never before today), found the same way as Find a Time: for the providers you chose, or any provider of the type when you have not chosen one yet, at the appointment's length. Times inside the patient's availability come first and are marked Patient free. With several providers on the appointment (a co-treatment), only times when all of them are free are suggested.

Click a time to move the appointment there; when no provider was chosen, the time's provider is filled in. The booking checks still run before you save.

Pick a patient from the waitlist while booking#

In a new appointment, click Pick from Waitlist beside Patient once the type, location, date and times are set. It lists the same patients Fill This Time would offer for that time: patients waiting for an earlier time with the chosen providers, then the referral queue for the discipline at that location whose requested days and times fit.

• Click Pick on a referred patient to fill in the patient and their referral episode. Once you book it, the referral leaves the queue, as when you book from the referral queue.
• Click Move Here on a waitlisted patient to move their later appointment into this time instead of booking a second one. The new appointment window closes, since there is nothing left to book.

Nobody is messaged from this list.

Keep a waitlist#

When a patient would happily come in sooner than their next appointment, mark it:

1. On the Schedule, hover over the patient's upcoming appointment.
2. In the summary, click the clock button beside the patient's name. It stays highlighted while the patient is on the waitlist.

Click the button again to take the patient off. Only an upcoming appointment that is still booked (Scheduled or Confirmed) can be marked. When the patient is moved to an earlier time, the flag does not carry over to the new appointment.

Fill a cancelled time#

When you cancel an upcoming appointment, NeatPractice opens Fill This Time with the patients who could take it. You can also open it later from the summary of any upcoming cancelled appointment.

The list shows, first:

• Wants an earlier time: patients on the waitlist whose later appointment is with one of the same providers at the same location and is no longer than the freed time, in the order they asked.

Then:

• Referral queue: referred patients waiting for an evaluation in the same discipline at that location, whose requested days and times (if any) include the freed time, most urgent first.

Patients already booked at that time, and patients you cannot see on the schedule, are left out. Within each group, patients whose availability includes the time (Free then) and who prefer the slot's provider (Prefers this provider) move up; those outside their availability are marked and move down.

• Click Move Here to reschedule a waitlisted patient's later appointment into the freed time. It keeps its own length and providers, and the later appointment is marked Rescheduled.
• Click Book to open a new appointment for a referred patient in the freed time, with the cancelled appointment's type, location and provider.

Find a cover provider#

When a provider cannot make a session, open its summary on the calendar and click Find Cover. It works on a session you already cancelled too, so you can cancel first and then look for someone. NeatPractice lists the providers of the session's discipline who could take it: the patient's preferred providers first (marked Preferred), then those whose weekly hours cover the time at that location. Each one is checked as if the session were booked with them in place of the provider: the list shows what the booking checks would say, whether they can be booked without an override, and whether they treated the patient before.

Covers shows how much of the session each provider can take: All of it, a percentage when their hours or another booking cut into it, or None of it. Providers who can be booked and cover the whole session come first, so a partial cover is still there when nobody is free for all of it.

Click Book to open a new appointment for the same patient, type, location and time with that provider. Cancel the original session when the new one is booked, if you have not already. To cover every session of a provider who is out for a day or more, use Cover a callout.