It’s a good rule of thumb to pre-appoint for treatment planned care before a patient leaves. However, patients aren’t always willing or able to commit to a specific date and time. Planned Appointments prevent patient care from slipping through the cracks, and are a great way to fill openings in your schedule.

Planned Appointments prepare treatment planned procedures into a ready-to-schedule grouping so that you can schedule patients for care, either pre-appointing at the end of their visit or when you have a slot to fill in your schedule.

First, prioritize your treatment plan.
Assigning priorities to treatment planned procedures makes it easier to see essential care first, and grouping them into separate planned appointments quick and easy.

Next, create your planned appointment.
When you create a planned appointment, all treatment planned procedures for that patient will be displayed. Some procedures may already be attached to other appointments. If you see (other appt) in the description when adding a new planned appointment, that procedure is tied to another planned appointment. If you see (scheduled appt), the procedure is attached to an appointment that is already on your schedule.

Any patient who needs treatment should have a planned appointment in place at the end of their visit so that the front desk can attempt to schedule them for that care before they leave.

Then, use your appointment lists! If the patient was not able or willing to commit to a specific future appointment date, use your appointment lists so their care doesn’t slip through the cracks.

Pull up the planned tracker to see patients with planned treatment that have not been scheduled yet, and if you’re filling a last-minute opening in your schedule, check the ASAP List: you’ll see planned appointments you’ve marked as ASAP, and any other patients who’ve requested an appointment as soon as it’s available. Planned Appointments can also be marked as ASAP so they can also show up in the ASAP List.

Finally, contact the patient to get the planned appointment on the schedule! Grouping treatment planned procedures by priority gives you the information you need to talk with your patients about essential treatment that shouldn’t be delayed. Getting your patients in for timely treatment prevents small issues from becoming bigger and costlier problems down the road. Once a planned appointment has been set complete, it will disappear from the planned appointment grid.
TECH TIP: Use the Web Sched ASAP eService to text your patients with schedule openings right from the ASAP list. The text message includes a link so they can schedule their appointment online!

Prioritizing care makes it easier for you to present essential care to your patients (which improves case acceptance). Combine that with planned appointments for an efficient, streamlined appointment-making process.