Scheduling & booking
A functional overview of how scheduling works for staff. For definitions of the terms used here, see Core concepts.
How availability is defined
Roster rules define when a provider or other bookable resource is available. Staff (or clinic administrators) set these up so the system knows who or what can be booked, and when. Administrators can also set up a shared intake-nurse queue that referred patients book themselves — see Intake nurse availability.
Finding open slots
Given the roster rules in place, staff can query availability to see open slots — for a specific provider or resource, and for a given appointment type (the kind of appointment being booked, such as a particular visit type).
A slot is treated as taken whenever a booking already holds it — including a booking whose patient has already checked in, not only one still marked Scheduled. The assistant also never offers or commits a time that has already passed, so a slot cannot be taken up by a conversation that ran long.
Creating and cancelling bookings
Once you've found a slot, you create a booking: a reservation of that slot for an appointment type, against a resource. Bookings can also be cancelled, freeing the slot back up.
Changing an intake booking
When a patient asks the assistant to move a nurse intake call, the new time supersedes the original booking — the patient ends up with one appointment, not two. See Intake nurse availability.
Booking a nurse intake call does not grant consent to receive personal health information by text or phone. That consent is captured separately and explicitly — see Consent & patient privacy.
Booking a prospect promotes them to a patient
When you book an appointment for a prospect, that action is what promotes them to an active patient — it's the single point where the outreach side of the funnel connects to the clinical record. See Referrals workflow for how a referral becomes a prospect in the first place, and how staff drive it through outreach up to the point of booking.