SAM Screen Reference Guide
Before PCC’s Appointment Book, many practices used the SAM scheduler in the old Partner system, sometimes called the Practice Management windows. This article is a reference guide to the screens in the SAM program.
Contents
Start SAM and Find Patients
You can launch the scheduler from several other Partner programs. For example, if your staff uses pen (Phone Encounter Notes) to handle triage calls, you can schedule directly from that program. If your front desk needs to schedule a follow-up visit while checking out a patient, they can press F8 – Patient Schedule while posting charges in checkout and jump into the scheduler. In fact, the programs checkin, pen, checkout, tickle, and the lab module all have a link to sam. If you use those tools, you will benefit from a direct link to the scheduler. Look for keys like this:
sam is also a stand-alone program. You can run it from the “Patient Scheduler” option in your Daily Operations window, or by typing sam from a UNIX prompt. The [prog]inquire[/prog] program, used to review or edit patient appointment histories, can also be run independently.
If you are not already working with a patient, you will be asked to select one when you first run sam. You can find patients by name as well as by birthday or any of several other criteria. For more information, read Find Routines in Partner.
More than One Office?: If you schedule appointments for more than one office or physical location, sam will ask you for which office you wish to schedule:
Once you have selected a scheduling office, sam will select it for you by default each time you run the scheduler. You can change the default by selecting a different location and you can override your default location at any time by changing the location field on the Search Criteria screen.
The SAM Search Criteria Screen
After you select a patient, you will see the SAM Search Criteria screen shown below. From here you can review information about the patient, add more patients and relatives for scheduling, jump to several other Partner programs, or enter visit criteria to schedule a new appointment.
The customizable patient information in the middle of this screen can be very helpful. If the patient has been dismissed or transferred, for example, you may see a flag indicating that in one or more of the “STATUS” lines at the top. You can also confirm address, phone, and insurance information on this screen and use F6 – Demographics to correct any problems. Best of all, this screen is customizable. If your office needs to add or remove certain information, contact PCC for help editing this screen.
Note: Before scheduling, check out the “LAST PHYS” and “NEXT APPT” fields in the upper right hand corner. Many insurance companies will not pay for more than one physical a year, and another family member may have already scheduled this patient’s appointment. The “NEXT APPT” field will show you this patient’s first upcoming appointment after today.
Enter Visit Criteria
The SAM Search Criteria screen contains patient information and scheduling tools, but the primary purpose is scheduling appointments. After reviewing the information on the screen, you continue scheduling by filling out the information at the top of the screen. The top row of fields are: Visit Reason, Provider, Minutes, and Location.
As you enter information, press ENTER to move from field to field. You can also use the TAB key. TAB moves the cursor through every field; ENTER only selects the most important fields: Visit Reason, Provider, and Time Frame. To go back one field, press BACKSPACE or use the left arrow key.
Default Values: The criteria fields can have default values. If your office has only one provider, or almost always performs the same visit reason, ask PCC Support about configuring a default value. Partner can also automatically enter the patient’s Primary Care Physician, instead. In either case, Partner can automatically enter the provider’s preferred visit length (in minutes) for the Visit Reason.
Status Flags Can Block Scheduling: Some patient and account flags can restrict your ability to schedule. If the patient has the “Deceased” flag, for example, that flag will appear in the Visit Reason field and you will be unable to proceed. Contact PCC Support for help configuring the “Prevent Scheduling” feature for certain status flags.
Visit Reasons
Is the patient coming in for a standard sick visit or a physical? Does your office schedule flu shot visits and ADD consultations? Partner contains a predefined list of visit reasons that can be entered into this box. Your office has its own list which can be configured to your particular scheduling needs in ted, the Table Editor.
Do you want to see a list of visit reasons defined on your system? Enter an asterisk (*) and press ENTER. To learn more about defining different visit reasons for your office, read the Sam Configuration section of the Partner Manual or contact PCC support.
Remember to abbreviate. Instead of typing out Sick Call for a sick visit, just type s and press enter. The screen will show you what your abbreviation stood for, so do not worry if you make a bad guess and use an improper abbreviation. Abbreviations are customizable and can be changed for your office.
Providers or Provider Groups, Minutes
Just as Partner knows your office’s visit reasons, it also knows your providers. You can see a list by entering an asterisk (*) and selecting the provider desired. You may notice a letter next to the Provider field. That letter is an initial indicating the patient’s primary care provider as stored in the Patient Editor (notjane) and checkin programs.
Groups? In addition to using a provider’s name, your office may use provider groups for scheduling. For example, you may enter “any” to find open times for any available provider. PCC support can create any provider group you would find useful for scheduling. Many large practices have “male” and “female” groups for use when the patient wants an appointment with any male or female provider.
PCP or Other Default: PCC Support can configure the Scheduler to automatically enter a default provider or the patient’s Primary Care Physician (if record in the Patient Editor).
Minutes: Each provider may have a default visit length for each visit reason. If Dr. Smith needs ten minutes for a sick visit, Partner can be configured so the Minutes field will automatically display that time without you having to type it. If you press ENTER from the provider field, sam will skip the Minutes field entirely. Some offices leave the length of consultations or other visit types unspecified. For those visits you can press TAB and enter a time in the “Minutes” field. You might also do this in order to extend a sick or recheck visit for a patient who needs extra time (indicated with a status flag).
Location
The “Location” field shows an abbreviation for the office in which you are scheduling. It can be changed if you are making an appointment in a different location. You can skip this field by using the ENTER key to move among the fields. As with the visit reasons and the providers, you can see a list of scheduling locations by using the asterisk (*) key.
Time Frames
After entering other appointment criteria, sam users enter a date or one or more time frames to indicate when an appointment should take place.
Time frames help a busy scheduler find the best available appointment.
A time frame can be nearly anything a caller says to you on the phone: a date, a day of the week, a month, a range of dates or times, or even a few everyday phrases. You can combine up to four time frames and use abbreviations. If someone asks you for Thursday afternoons in December, just enter “thurs”, “aftn” and “dec” to view appropriate openings.
Optional: Time frames are optional. If you leave the Time Frame fields empty, sam will offer you the first available time slot on the next four days the provider has free time.
Time Frames vs. A Scheduling "Book": With traditional scheduling, if a family had Mondays off work and needed a 1 month recheck, you would have to flip through from Monday to Monday. Using sam’s time frames, however, you can enter “Mondays” and “in 1 month” and find all available times that match the patient and family’s needs. sam will show you the first available time on each Monday starting one month from now. You can then confirm one of those times or scroll to more matching offerings with the touch of a key.
You will need to practice using time frames for a while before you become an expert. Until you learn all the tricks, remember that you can always just enter the date and/or time that the caller desires. You can also leave the question blank and sam will offer you the earliest available times.
Different Kinds of Time Frames
Many different words and phrases work as time frames. Below are the basic elements of different time frames you might use, along with some examples. Notice that the examples include both the full text as well as some of the abbreviations that are allowed.
|
Basic Element |
Possible Time Frames |
|---|---|
| Dates | 01/16/2004, 01/16, Jan 16 |
| Days | monday, mondays, mon, tues, wed, mo, tu, we, … |
| Times | 10:30am, 1:00pm, 1pm, … |
| Months | january, jan, feb, mar, apr, ja, fe, ap, … |
| Ranges | wed-thu, 10/01-10/15, 3pm-6pm |
| How Far Out | in two weeks, 2wks, in 1 month, 1m |
| Time of Day | morning, morn, evening, eve, afterschool, afts, afternoon, aftn |
| Not… | not monday, not tuesday, not mo, not tu |
| Before… | Before 10/01/06, not before 09/01/06, before june |
| Everyday Phrases | asap, sick, today |
| Multiple Patient Indicator | concurrent, serial |
As illustrated above, the Time Frame fields accept two and three letter abbreviations for days and months. The exceptions include march, may, june, and july, which all need at least three letters.
Sick, “Today”, and asap
The abbreviations “asap” and “sick” are not standard time frames.
The “asap” time frame looks for the first available time over the next several days. The “sick” time frame (which can also be typed as “today” or “t”) concentrates on times for today only.
Use the “sick” time frame to see one column, with times for today only. This can be very helpful if you handle a lot of triage phone calls and do not wish to see any day except for today. If you use the “any” group as your provider, the sick time frame will show you one column for every provider who has available time today.
Multiple Patient Indicator
Another special time frame is the multiple patient indicator. If you are scheduling for more than one patient or scheduling the same patient for multiple visits or multiple providers, you can use one of these two time frames. You either want the visits to be “concurrent” (scheduled at the same time with different providers) or “serial” (scheduled back-to-back). The default behavior is “serial.” For more information, read the Scheduling Multiple Patients topic.
Time Frames in Action
Now that you have seen the basic elements, some more examples will help you see how time frames can be entered. Below are some examples of appointment requests you might receive and what time frame to use. Remember that you can always just enter a date if the caller gives you a date. The tricks below might help you to find more appropriate openings more quickly.
Common Requests and Possible Time Frames
| If the caller asks for: | Use the time frame(s) of: | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| A sick/office visit for today | sick OR t | ||
| As soon as possible | asap | ||
| September 15th or after | 09/15 | ||
| 1 month from now | 1 mo | ||
| A recheck 2 weeks from today | 2wks | ||
| Any Monday afternoon | Mon | Aftn | |
| Any time between 10 and 2 | 10am-2pm | ||
| In the morning on Oct 20th | morn | 10/20 | |
| Any Thursday afternoon in July | thur | july | afternoon |
| Either Monday or Tuesday afterschool | mon, tues | afts | |
| At 2pm, but not Tuesday or Thursday | 2 | not tue, thur | |
| Any Monday afternoon before June 10th | mo | aftn | before 06/10/06 |
As you can see, you can combine time frames to focus in on what the patient needs. Using time frames is a skill that grows with practice, so you may want to review the elements above once you have used sam for a few weeks. Even if you only use dates, days of the week and asap, you will still find available time slots much faster than by searching through the entire schedule.
After you have entered a visit reason, provider, time, location and time frame(s), press F1 – Schedule to browse available times.
Overbooking and Jumping to a Specific Date
The sam program is designed to first show you all open, available slots. There is no time frame that will show you a day that is booked solid. Depending on how you enter time frames, searching for a date and provider where there is not enough time will either result in the next day or show no available appointments.
How can you overbook? You can review a full day and overbook a provider by using the Detail or Day View screens.
Function Keys on the SAM Search Criteria Screen
You can perform a wide range of Partner functions from the opening screen in sam:
F1 – Schedule
Press F1 to continue the scheduling process using the information you entered at the top of the screen. See the Enter Visit Criteria articles for more information on completing the Visit Reason, Provider, Minutes, Location, and Time Frame fields.
F2 – Inquire
Press F2 to run the inquire program. In inquire you can view complete visit information on a patient’s future and previous appointments. You can delete, cancel, or mark these appointments as missed. You can change the notes for an appointment and reprint the encounter form. For more information, read the [prog]inquire[/prog] article.
F3 – Find
Press F3 to find more patients. You can then view and schedule more than one patient simultaneously. After you find them, they will be listed at the top of this screen. As you select each one using the arrow keys, the demographic information will change to show information for each patient. You can enter appointment criteria and schedule for each patient or you can clear unneeded patients from the screen by selecting them and pressing F8 – Clear.
See the Scheduling Multiple Patients topic for more information. In addition to scheduling several different patients, you can schedule the same patient for a simultaneous visit with two or more providers or a provider and an assistant.
F4 – Customizable Function Key
Press F4 to perform a custom action. If your office frequently adds a pen note, views a scheduling report, or performs some other common Partner function while scheduling, you can assign that function to the F4 key on the Search Criteria screen. Contact PCC support (<support@pcc.com> or 1-800-722-1082) to set up a custom action for the F4 key.
F5 – Next Relation
Press F5 to add a relation of the current patient. A relation is any patient who shares a custodian with the current patient. This is particularly useful when scheduling siblings. When you press F5, sam will show you a list of all the patients related to the currently selected patient. Select the ones you wish to work with and press F1 – Process. See the Scheduling Multiple Patients section below for more information.
F6 – Demographics
Press F6 to run the checkin program. This is a very important tool, as checkin contains links to most other Partner programs. Do you need to look up the patient’s immunization record before scheduling? Jump to checkin and then press F2 – Edit Patient to run the Patient Editor (notjane). From checkin you can also review outstanding balances, update insurance information, or even post payments.
F7 – Customizable Function Key
Press F7 to perform a custom action. If your office frequently adds a pen note, views a scheduling report, or performs some other common Partner function while scheduling, you can assign that function to the F7 key on the Search Criteria screen. Contact PCC support (<support@pcc.com> or 1-800-722-1082) to set up a custom action for the F7 key.
F8 – Clear
Press F8 to remove the currently selected patient from your list. If you only have one patient listed at the top of the screen, press F8 to search and schedule for a new patient. If you have used the Find or Next Relation keys to add additional patients to the top of the screen, you can use F8 to remove them from the list before scheduling.
Jumping Back to the Criteria Screen
After filling out the visit criteria and pressing F1 – Schedule, you will have access to the three sam scheduling screens and can pick the best available date and time for the appointment. If you need to jump back to the Search Criteria screen and make a change to one of the items described above, you have several options.
F2 – New Time Frame
Press F2 to jump back to the Search Criteria screen and put the cursor into the first Time Frame field.
Press V to return to the Search Criteria screen and put the cursor into the Visit Reason field.
Press P to return to the Search Criteria screen and put the cursor into the Provider field.
Press L to return to the Search Criteria screen and put the cursor into the Location field.
Press M to return to the Search Criteria screen and put the cursor into the Minute field.
Press T to return to the Search Criteria screen and put the cursor into the Time Frame field.
Press F12 to return to the Search Criteria screen and put the cursor into the first (Visit Reason) field.
The above hot-keys will help you quickly change visit criteria while scheduling a patient.
The SAM Normal View: Choose From Available Appointment Times
The Normal View in the Scheduler offers available times based on the criteria you entered on the Search Criteria screen. The earliest and best matches for the criteria you entered will be in the middle row, and the first available match is highlighted, ready to be confirmed.
Other available times are listed in the same row across the middle of your screen. You can also view other available times and move around the calendar to find the best time for the patient.
Reading the Normal View
The Normal View screen is divided into a grid of columns and rows.
Columns
Each column provides details about a different day. The information at the top of the column tells you what day and provider the column displays.
The dates may be consecutive, but sam will not waste space showing a date for which there is no available time or that does not meet your search criteria. If a provider only works on Wednesday and Thursday, you will only see columns for Wednesdays and Thursdays. If you enter “Monday” as a time frame, sam will offer the next several Mondays with available time. If you enter “sick” as a time frame, you will only see one column for each provider in your criteria who has available time today.
Cells, or Units of Time
The columns are split into units of time during the day. In the screen above, each rectangle represents a fifteen minute unit of time. Your office might work with a ten or five minute schedule instead, and a few offices have used a thirty minute unit.
The currently selected unit is highlighted. Press F1 – Schedule Appt, to start confirming that appointment. The currently selected appointment is also shown at the top of the screen.
Here are three units from a Normal View screen:
In the example above, for the day and provider selected, you can see that the 8:45am time slot is wide open, but a five minute allergy recheck partially fills up the 9:00am time. Since the visit being scheduled is only ten minutes long, it can still be scheduled to start at 9:00am.
In each slot you can also see basic information about existing visits. For example, the patient Jnaya Payne is scheduled for an allergy recheck at 9:00am. The 9:15am unit has a “+2” next to the time, indicating that two visits are scheduled in that time. You can use F8 to go to the Detailed View if you want to see more details about those two visits.
No Times Available?: If a clinician is fully booked or has no room for the appointment you wish to schedule, the day will not be offered on the sam Normal View. You may see a warning message that “There are no available times for your chosen criteria.” You can use the Day View or Detailed View to review the schedule and force in an appointment, or you can return to the SAM Search Criteria screen and use a different time frame.
Actions On the Normal View
Find and Schedule the Best Time
The sam scheduler automatically selects the first and best match for you. However, you can use the arrow keys or function keys to choose a different time, date, or provider.
Use the right and left arrow keys to move across the middle row.
Press F4 – Next Available to ask sam to find the next best times according to your criteria. The middle row will shift to show the next open time in each column. You can use the F4 and F3 – Prev Available keys to cycle through all the available times in the days shown.
Review More of the Schedule
You can arrow off the screen and the screen will shift in that direction. Whenever you see a highlighted number of minutes in the upper right hand corner of a rectangle, there is open time available.
No matter how far you scroll off the screen to the right, sam will continue to only offer times based on the criteria you entered. If you decide to schedule based on a different time frame (or provider, visit reason, etc.), you should press F2 – New Time Frame to make changes to your criteria.
Jump to a More Detail, Remove Blocks, Double-Book
Press [F7 — Day View] or [F8 — Day View] to learn more about the selected day’s schedule, remove blocks, or double-book.
Function Keys on the Normal View
F1 – Schedule Appt
Press F1 to schedule the currently selected appointment. You will be shown a confirmation screen where you can add notes and save the appointment by pressing F1 again. On the confirmation screen, you have a chance to return to this screen by pressing F12. If you attempt to confirm an appointment at an unavailable time, you will be shown a conflict screen with a link to the Detailed View.
F2 – New Time Frame
Press F2 to return to the SAM Search Criteria screen. If you need to change the patient, the visit reason, the provider, or the time frame for the visit, press F2 and make your changes.
F3 – Previous Available
Press F3 to see earlier available times in each column. F3 scrolls all of the columns down so that the middle row shows the previous appointment openings. Keep in mind that sam will only offer open times that match your time frame, it will skip over times that are filled or that don’t match your criteria. F3, along with F4, allows you to cycle through the available openings for the day you are viewing based on the criteria you entered.
F4 – Next Available
Press F4 to see the next available times in each column. F4 scrolls all of the columns up so the middle row shows the next available openings. Keep in mind that sam will only offer open times that match your time frame, it will skip over times that are filled or that don’t match your criteria. F4, along with F3, allows you to cycle through the available openings for each day you are viewing based on the criteria you entered.
Note: If you are scheduling for a provider group, such as “any” or “male”, the Normal View will shift to show you the next four openings for any provider in that group when you press F3 or F4. That may mean that the columns no longer show the same providers, but instead will show the next possible available provider in the provider group you used. If you would rather scroll through available appointments with the providers “frozen” in the column they started in, use Page Up and Page Down instead of F3 and F4. No matter which method you use to view next appointments, you can arrow off the screen to the right to see additional available doctors if any are available.
F5 – Select This Day/Deselect
Press F5 to view all available doctors for the selected day. If you are scheduling for a provider group and are looking at a range of dates, you will see the first available provider for each date. You may want to find out if alternate providers are available. Use the arrow keys to select the column of that day and press F5. The Normal View will show you a single column for every provider who is available on the date you selected. Press F5 again to return you to the standard calendar view. Using the “sick” or “today” time frame is similar to selecting a day with F5.
F6 – Select This Prov/Deselect
Press F6 to see more openings for the provider of the currently selected column. If you entered a provider group (such as “any”) when specifying the provider, you may want to switch to a single provider while scheduling. Choose a column that shows that provider and press F6. The Normal View will show only that provider’s schedule. You can press F6 again to return to viewing open times for the provider group you originally entered.
F7 – Day View
Press F7 to view the Day View screen. The Day View allows you to force in an appointment for any desired time and date. You can also review the current schedule for all providers. The Day View shows statistics on how busy each provider is for a given date. You can find out who the least busy provider is, switch to that provider and location, and continue scheduling. You can also force in an appointment for any desired time and date.
F8 – Detailed View
Press F8 to view the Detailed View screen. The Detailed View offers more information about each time slot, including complete visit information and a tally of how each unit of time is used. You can also remove blocks and schedule directly from the Detailed View.
The Sam Detailed View: Review Appointment Details, Remove Blocks
Who booked an appointment on your screen? Why is a unit of time double or triple-booked? The Normal View only shows basic information about each unit of time. Use the Detailed View to review a busy schedule, as well as double-book or remove blocks.
The Normal view in sam displays several columns with basic information. The Detailed View shows a single day with lots of information about each time slot.
Select a date column in the Normal View and press F8 to switch to the Detailed View.
Reading the Detailed View
The Detailed View shows complete information about every appointment and every time slot. Each time slot on the left hand side of the screen has an explanatory section on the right hand side. For each time slot, you can review the number of appointments, amount of time booked and blocked, and complete appointment information (including notes, scheduler, and when scheduled).
In the image above, you can see that there are two visits scheduled at 10:00am. The user “ginger” made both appointments on 09/29/04, and you can see that the first visit may include a flu and tetanus shot.
Actions On the Detailed View
Review the Schedule
If you want to look around the schedule, press F4 – Next Available to walk down through all the available openings.
Or, use your arrow keys to move up and down through each unit of the day. Press the right and left arrow keys to view different days.
Schedule an Appointment
When you find the appointment time you want, press F1 – Schedule Appt.
Overbook or Force an Appointment
You can select and examine any day or time in the Detailed view, even a day that is fully booked and has no available times.
Use the arrow keys to select an unavailable time and press F1 to force in an appointment.
Permissions Configuration: Permission to double-booking or force in an appointment can be limited to specific users. If you can not double-book and need to, speak with your office’s system administrator or contact PCC Support at support@pcc.com or 1-800-722-1082.
Remove Blocks
You can select and remove blocks on the Detailed view. For example, if your allotted time for physicals is fully booked, you may decide to remove a sick or recheck visit block so you can fit an extra physical.
Use the arrow keys to select a block and press F5 – Remove Block to remove it.
This key only appears on the screen when you have selected a block appointment, like a sick call block.
Permissions Configuration: Permission to remove a block can be limited to specific users. If you can not remove a block but need to, speak to your office’s system administrator or contact PCC Support at support@pcc.com or 1-800-722-1082.
Switch Time Frame or Criteria
While you are viewing the Detailed View, you are working with a single provider and your original time frame and criteria.
If you wish to change your search criteria or switch providers, press F2 – New Time Frame.
You can also press F7 – Day View and switch providers on the Day View.
New Normal View Based on Selection
If you would like sam to search for new times based on the date you have selected in the Detailed View, press F6 – Set New Criteria. sam will take you back to the Normal View with your newly selected time and date as a starting point for your search.
The Sam Day View: Force in Appointments, Review All Providers
The Day View displays a provider’s appointments for a day as well as how busy each provider is on that day. You can review your office’s schedule and book appointments in any time slot. You can jump to a date that is unavailable or full and force in an appointment, a feature unavailable on the Normal View.
To reach the Day View, press F7 – Day View from the Normal View. Note that if you use F8 from any scheduling view, you will cycle through the three different scheduling views.
Read the Day View
The Day View screen is divided into two parts.
The Provider’s Schedule
On the left is a simple view of the selected day for the currently selected provider. Each unit of time shows an abbreviated visit reason, a patient name, and any amount of blocked time or open time.
Use your arrow keys to move up and down through the day. Press F3 – Previous Day, F4 – Next Day or F5 – Jump To Date to view other days.
Summary for All Providers
A provider schedule summary, or “workload” summary, is on the right hand side of the screen. For each clinician, you can see the total number of free and scheduled minutes.
The currently selected provider and the shift you are reviewing will be highlighted.
In the example shown, an 8:45am visit is selected, and on the right hand side you can see that this is with Dr. Bugles, working in the office, during his morning hours of 8:30am to 12:00pm. You can also tell how much time during each part of the day is already scheduled and how much is still free. For example, in the afternoon Dr. Bugles has 180 minutes free and has six scheduled appointments for a total of 90 minutes scheduled.
Configuration: PCC can configure which of your clinicians you would like to appear in this list and whether to sort the list alphabetically or by available time.
’What: *[/keycap]) for?’]You may notice an asterisk next to a provider’s name and an explanation at the bottom of the screen that you can not schedule your current visit reason for the indicated provider. This happens when the visit reason you chose does not have a visit length listed in the table editor (ted). sam does not know how much time that provider needs for the visit. To schedule for that provider, you will need to press F2 – New Time Frame and enter a visit length.
Actions On the Day View
Review the Schedule
Use the up and down arrow keys to move up and down the day’s schedule or the list of clinicians. Use the right and left arrow keys to move between the two panels.
As you select a clinician on the right-hand side, the panel on the left will change to display that clinician’s schedule. You can therefore use the Day View to quickly review the entire day’s schedule for all clinicians in all locations.
Schedule an Appointment
You can use F1 – Schedule Appt to make an appointment at the selected time.
If the clinician is not available, or the appointment will not fit in the selected slot for some other reason, the key will read F1 – Force in Appt.
See a New Normal View Based on Your Selection
You can jump to any date, select any provider in any location, and then press F6 – Set New Criteria to return to the Normal View with new criteria.
If you press F8 – Normal View instead, sam will assume you were “just looking” and return to your original date and provider.
The SAM Notes and Confirmation View
Press F1 – Schedule Appt from the Normal, Detailed, Day, or Patient View to begin confirming appointments listed at the top of the screen. From the Notes and Confirmation screen you can enter notes and confirm the appointment:
While you are confirming, you can remind the caller about the time and date you have selected and note any pertinent information about the visit. The function keys are the standard options for the fred text editor. They allow you to manipulate the notes you type in various ways.
If you change your mind, or you selected the wrong visit time by mistake, just press F12. You will be taken back to the Normal View so you can pick a different appointment or quit.
The most important function is F1 – Confirm Appt, which will confirm the appointment you have selected and save any notes you have typed. If you are scheduling for two or more patients, you will be shown a separate confirmation screen for each one. If you are scheduling an appointment for today, an encounter form will print out as soon as you save.
After confirming the appointment(s), you will be brought to the find routines so you can schedule for the next patient. If you want to check the work on the visit you just made or make changes to the patient’s demographics, you can press F2 – Use Last Patient to return to the SAM Search Criteria screen. From their you can run inquire or view the patient’s demographics.
Conflicting Appointments
If at any time you attempt to confirm a time slot that is already filled or is otherwise unavailable, you will be shown a conflict screen:
The conflict screen conveniently has a function key for jumping to the Detail View for more information. You can press F12 to return to the screen where you selected the appointment time, or press F8 – Detail View so you can evaluate the day in more detail and determine how the slot was already filled.
If you are certain that you wish to schedule the appointment anyway, press F1 – Force In Appt to continue scheduling. This may result in double booking or scheduling an appointment when the provider is not scheduled to work. PCC can turn this option on and off for specified users.