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Creating, Viewing and Modifying Appointments
Creating, Viewing and Modifying Appointments
Damian Funnell avatar
Written by Damian Funnell
Updated over a year ago

Creating an Appointment/Consultation

Defining Appointments vs Consultations

An Appointment is the scheduled session with a client and the Consultation is where the notes, files and invoice are stored regarding that appointment. Appointments and Consultations are separated entities within Panacea because we want our customers to be able to carry on writing up their consultation notes after completing the appointment.

The best workflow for managing Appointments and Consultations is as follows:

  1. Add patient to the system.

  2. Add the new appointment.

  3. Create the consultation from the appointment.

Now let's break down how this all gets done.

Creating an appointment

You can create a new appointment either by double-clicking a time slot in the Schedule. The 'New appointment entry' window will appear:

Enter the following details:

  • Doctor

  • Room

  • Client - start typing the client name or number and select the intended client from the drop-down list.  Note that the names of this clients' animals are listed in the drop-down list, which can make it easier to find the correct patient in the next step.

  • Patient - start typing the patient name and select from the resulting drop-down list.

  • Enter the reason for the consultation.

Modify the start and end times if necessary and then click Create appointment.

Viewing or Editing Appointments

Appointments can only be edited prior to completion - once their status is set to 'Completed' or 'Cancelled' they become read only.

Appointment times can be changed simply by dragging and dropping the appointment between time slots. You can also change the doctor or room for appointments by dragging them between columns in the 'Person' or 'Room' views.

To view or edit an appointment, simply double click it and choose Edit from the drop-down list.

Don't forget to save the appointment if you edit it.

Appointment Statuses

The following appointment statuses are currently supported:

  • Scheduled

  • Arrived (signifies the client has arrived and is waiting to be seen)

  • Started (appointment is in progress)

  • Completed

  • Cancelled

You can also delete the appointment by clicking the red trash can at the top of the edit appointment screen. This deletes the appointment altogether - we recommend cancelling rather than deleting appointments, as this maintains a record of the cancelled appointment in the schedule.

Creating a Consultation

Create or open an existing consultation from the edit appointment screen simply by clicking on the stethoscope icon. If there is already a consultation associated with this appointment you will be taken to this consultation, otherwise a new consultation will be created.

Completing an Appointment or Consultation

Because Consultations are designed to allow you to keep adding to them upon completion of the Appointment, when you mark a consultation as completed the status of the linked appointment will also automatically complete, thus locking the appointment.

This doesn't happen the other way around though. So, when an appointment is marked as completed, the consultation will not mark as completed. You only want to mark an appointment as completed when the client and patient have both left the building and the invoice has been processed.

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