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Is there a way to have online patient scheduling with AC ?
Does PM software offer an interface for patients to schedule appointments online?

Thanks in advance.

Not that I know of with direct interface. I remember years ago there was a physician that had online scheduling able to work from that schedule and see pts but I'm not sure how it worked. When I say years ago, it was at the user conference in 2011 when I talked to her.

I just sent an email to AC to ask this very question. The reply was there's no way to do it that integrates with AC. I know Updox offers online scheduling. Last I looked at it (years ago), the patient has to be signed into the Updox portal. I thought that was not a great idea since the Updox portal is horrible. AC didn't reply that Updox can do it, so I don't know if Updox is still an option.

I have made interfaces between online scheduling software and some in-house systems. It can be difficult and cannot be done between some systems. Considering the following example:

In-house system:

Web based scheduling system

In both examples, we have recurring appointments. The in-house system has one line for the entire series of the recurring appointment. The RepeatType has a "W" which means weekly, the RepeatUnit is a "1" which means once a week, and the RepeatModifier has an X for Monday (the dashes start on Sunday). This system, when you choose a date to look at on the screen, must pull all recurring appointments and calculate each one to see if it should display on the date the user chose to see on the screen.

The web based system, however, when creating a recurring appointment, actually creates and entry for each date the appointment should occur. Therefore, if the user creates a recurring appointment for the patient to be seen Tuesday and Thursday every week until February of next year, that means the system will create around 70 or so entries in the appointment database. The in-house system will create one appointment entry but will have the repeat type, repeat until, and repeat modifier columns filled out appropriately.

There are, of course, pros and cons to doing it either way. Amazing Charts uses the second approach - an entry per recurrence of the appointment. As any of you can imagine, however, good luck getting these two systems to speak to each other. It can be done, but there are trade-offs.

The astute may say, "But we only need demographics to come over, not the entire schedule." True. But define "demographics." To many, that just means first name, last name, address, birthdate, race, and so on. To others, they lump policy and insurance information in there as well. Now your online scheduling software that just wants to do scheduling has to be as HIPAA compliant as everyone else and be comfortable storing such data. Many are not. Further, good luck getting the transfer of insurance info from the online scheduler to your EMR. And, of course, there is the interface itself. How will the two systems communicate? HL7?

Many of the online schedulers are not willing to put forth such expense for customers who don't want to pay any more than their other customers who have no need for such things. Consider an auto-mechanics shop. They just need to know your name, car make and model, and date of your appointment. No privacy issues at all. No HIPAA. No interface. Less expensive.

JamesNT

Thanks James, my only thing is how do the Dentists do it? They seem to have the latest greatest, only scheduling, appointment reminders, missed appointment texts and emails, Birthday wishes, etc. Heck I think if I told them my dog's birthday they would send me a text!

Of course I haven't asked my Dentist how much he pays for this super system.

If you don't use AC for scheduling & use another software or program that has an online scheduling component or integration, then it could work well. For a while years ago we tried to use our PM software for scheduling instead of AC. But for pediatrics it's better to be able to quickly see when the last well visit was, so we went back to using AC for scheduling.

@Chris,

Dental is in its own little world, and they like it there. However, while Dental can often times have better toys than standard medical, the dental guys surely do have their own set of problems.

JamesNT

We don't currently, but I have been meaning to try the Updox patient scheduling option. I'm just nervous for what that would end up looking like. We like to have a lot of control over our appointments.