Overview

This help page describes how patient appointment requests work if your set up allows them to request a particular appointment date and time based on calendar availability.


Cerbo users have the option to allow patients to request appointments through the Patient Portal. There are various ways this can be set up, including:

  • Simply allowing patients to send a request for a certain date and a morning or afternoon visit, without displaying calendar availability.
  • Allowing patients request a particular appointment date and time based on calendar availability.


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Details

Set Up for Patient Appointment Requests

First, set up your appointment types for online requests. Appointment types are created and managed under Admin > Manage > Schedule Types. See Setting Up your Appointment Types. Any appointment types that you want patients to be able to request:
  1. must be set as Yes for "Allow Pts to Schedule on Portal. And 
  2. any providers who patients should be able to request this type of appointment with must be selected under "Providers who use this appointment type."
Next, set up providers' availability via work schedules. See: Defining Work Schedules.
  • Make sure that providers' work schedules include the applicable appointment types that you want patients to be able to request!
  • Availability on the portal will be determined by when providers have a work schedule (which includes appointment types that are set to be visible on the portal and have the applicable provider(s) selected), and there is not another appointment scheduled at that time, or appointment request for that provider/ date/ time currently pending.

What Patients See

When requesting an appointment via the Patient Portal, patients will first select the provider they would like to see. Or the provider will auto-populate if there is only one person available.


Then they will select the desired appointment type. They will then be shown a list of dates when there is some availability for the provider and appointment type requested and, once a date is selected, the available hours in that day. There is also a space for patients to add notes to their request.


Accepting an Appointment Request 

When a patient requests an appointment, the request arrives in the Patient Portal Queue within Cerbo and in the Appointment Requests block on the schedule page.


At this point, you must respond to the request within the Patient Portal Queue or via the Appointment Requests block on the schedule page. To accept the request:

  1. In the Appointment Requests block: click on the requested date and time that is underlined in the request to open the Schedule New Event pop-up. Select the appointment type and make any other changes necessary. Click Add New Event to schedule the event. Then click on the green ✓ icon beside the request to archive it as "completed."
  2. In the Patient Portal queue: The request will have a yellow Add an Appointment button that brings up a Schedule New Event pop-up with the patient's request pre-loaded into the event. Select the appointment type and make any other changes necessary. Click Add New Event to schedule the event. Then click on the green ✓ icon beside the request to archive it as "completed."

To reject the request, click on the blue secure message icon beside the request in either the Patient Portal queue Appointment Requests block on the schedule page to send a message to the patient explaining why you are unable to accept the requested appointment, then click on the red x icon to archive the request as "not completed."



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Other keywords: appointment, scheduling, patient portal, schedule types, update provider