6. Reviewing a Patient's Appointments (inquire)
6.1. Introduction
In inquire, you can look up a patient's future or past appointments. You can make changes to appointment status or appointment notes and cancel an appointment when needed. Finally, you can reschedule any appointment in inquire, moving an existing appointment to a new date and time.
Read the sections below to learn all the functions and tools of inquire, Partner's patient appointment record.
6.2. Run inquire and View a Patient's Appointments
There are three ways to inquire about a patient's appointments:
If you are using sam, you can run inquire by pressing [F2 -- Inquire] from the Search Criteria screen.
You can tell the scheduler to inquire automatically whenever you find a patient for scheduling. To turn on the automatic inquire feature, refer to the Scheduler section of the Configuration Editor (ced) or contact PCC.
Finally, inquire can be run as a stand-alone program. PCC can add the inquire command to your Partner windows. If you are at a UNIX prompt, type inquire and press Enter. The program will ask you to select a patient.
When inquire runs, you will see a list of the chosen patient's appointments, with information about each one:
For each appointment, you can see the date, time, day, provider, location, visit reason, length of visit, and appointment "Status."
You can select specific appointments by using the arrow keys to go up and down the list. The "Notes" box at the bottom of the screen displays the visit notes of the currently selected appointment. If the patient has more appointments than can fit on the screen, the page up and page down keys allow access to the full list.
While most of the appointment information is self-explanatory, the Status column may contain varied information:
| Status | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Enc Needed | The appointment has been scheduled, but the encounter form has not been printed yet. |
| Enc: word | You have printed the encounter form, and "word" is the magic word. |
| Enc: | You have printed the encounter form, but so many days have passed since printing that the word has expired and been reused. You may have posted the charges without using the magic word. |
| Checked In | Someone has used the checkin program to confirm the patient's information. The patient is probably in the building. |
| Chg Posted | Someone has posted the charges for the encounter form by using the magic word in chuck. |
| Visit Reviewed | This is a visit that has been reviewed in Partner. PCC is preparing its databases for new charge posting confirmation features. For now, this status is identical to "Chg Posted." |
| Cancelled | This visit was cancelled using the inquire program. |
| Deleted | This visit was deleted using the inquire program. |
| Missed | This visit was marked as missed using the inquire program or the magic program. |
| Can/Del/Miss | This visit was "removed" with an old version of the inquire program that did not record how the appointment was removed. It was either marked as cancelled, deleted, or missed. |
6.3. Cancel, Delete, or Mark an Appointment as Missed
There are three ways to remove an appointment from a provider's schedule. You can record that the patient has cancelled the appointment, delete an appointment (if it is a mistake, for example), or mark that the patient has missed the appointment. All three of these functions are controlled in the inquire program.
First, use the arrow keys to select the visit you wish to change. Then use the following keys:
- [F2 -- Cancel Appt]
Press F2 to mark an appointment as Cancelled.
- [F3 -- Delete Appt]
Press F3 to mark an appointment as Deleted.
- [F4 -- Missed Appt]
Press F4 to mark an appointment as Missed.
For each of the above choices, you will see a warning screen asking you to press F1 to confirm your cancellation or F12 to keep the appointment and return to the main inquire screen.
Once a visit is removed in one of the above ways, it can not be recovered. At the bottom of the main inquire screen you can see a summary of the total number of missed and cancelled appointments the patient has had, along with the date of the most recently cancelled appointment.
6.4. Reschedule an Existing Appointment
When a patient wants to reschedule, you could make them a new appointment without cancelling the old appointment, but then the patient would be double booked! Instead, use inquire to both reschedule the appointment at a different time and cancel the old appointment at the same time. sam will transfer the basic visit information to the new appointment. Follow this procedure:
In inquire, select the appointment that needs to be moved.
Press [F2 -- Cancel Appt] to cancel the existing appointment. You could also choose [F3 -- Mark as Missed] or [F4 -- Delete], depending on the reason for rescheduling.
On the confirmation screen, press [F4 -- Reschedule Appointment]:
Schedule the new appointment. You will notice that the patient and visit information have been filled in for you. Enter a time frame (if desired) and press [F1 -- Schedule] to choose the new date and time for the appointment.
After you press [F1 -- Confirm] from sam's Confirmation screen, you will be returned to the inquire screen. You should see both the old and new appointment times listed, with the old time marked as "Cancelled."
 | Changing Your Mind |
|---|---|
If you press F12 while rescheduling, you will be returned to the inquire screen and the appointment you were rescheduling will not be cancelled, deleted, or marked as missed. |
| Who Rescheduled? |
|---|---|
When you use the procedure above to reschedule an appointment, inquire automatically adds your username to the appointment note. If you ever need to know who rescheduled an appointment, run inquire and select the appointment to review its notes. |
6.5. View a Family's Appointments, Reprint Encounters, or Change Appointment Notes
For other visit functions, use the following keys:
- [F5 -- Next Relation]
Press F5 to pick several family members and view their appointment histories together. After pressing F5, inquire will show you a selection screen listing patients with the same guarantor or custodian as your selected patient.
- [F6 -- Reprint Enc Form]
Press F6 to print a new encounter form for the selected visit.
- [F8 -- Bop To Notes]
Press F8 to move your cursor down to the Notes field. You can then edit the notes for the currently selected appointment. When finished, press [F1 -- Save New Notes] to save your changes.