Booking an appointment

You need the Create appointments permission to book appointments.

There are several ways to start:

• Appointments › New Appointment in the sidebar,
• New appointment on the All Appointments page,
• Book appointment on a patient’s Appointments tab (the patient is already filled in),
• New walk-in on the Clinical Desk, for a patient who’s already here,
• Book appointment on a recall (the patient, and the due date unless it’s overdue, are already filled in).

Book step by step

1. Patient

Before you type, the most recently registered patients are listed. Search by name, phone, email, or # with a patient ID or external ID, and pick them; the arrow keys and Enter work too. If they aren’t registered yet, select the New patient card, which opens the registration form in a new tab, then search again. The chosen patient is shown with their age, gender, blood type and whether they have a portal account; select Change to pick someone else.

Some modules add their own step right after this one. With Treatments on, a Treatments step (“What this visit is for”) lists the patient’s treatments that can be booked. Tick the ones this visit is for, or choose No treatment for a general visit. Book appointment on a treatment or a plan opens the wizard straight on this step, with that treatment, or the plan’s open treatments, already ticked.

2. Appointment Details

• Date & time (required)
• Type (required): Consultation, Follow up, Emergency or Treatment
• Priority (required): Low, Medium or High
• Duration (minutes) (optional)
• Room (optional)

Unless your clinic allows past-date appointments (see General settings), the date can’t be before today.

3. Staff Assignment

Pick the clinician who will carry out the visit. This is optional. You can assign someone later from the appointment’s page instead. Only staff who can be assigned to appointments are listed.

Scheduling conflicts: if a clinician already has an appointment that overlaps the time you picked, they’re marked, and a warning explains: “Name already has overlapping appointments at the selected time. You can still assign them, but consider a different time or clinician.” Every appointment that day counts, whatever its status. When an appointment has no duration, Meddesk counts it as 30 minutes for this check.

Schedules: when the Staff Schedules module is on, a clinician who is on leave, doesn’t work that day, or works other hours is marked in the same way, with the reason (“On leave at this time”, “Doesn’t work on this day” or “Outside working hours”). It’s only a warning: you can still assign them.

4. Review

Check the patient, the clinician (with Available or Scheduling conflict), the details and anything a module’s step added, such as the treatments. Select Create appointment.

You see Appointment created. and the new appointment opens. It starts as Scheduled.

Next steps

• When the patient confirms, change the status to Confirmed. They’re sent a confirmation, and reminders follow. See Change the status.
• When they arrive, Check in from the Clinical Desk.

Book a follow-up

From an existing appointment, you can book the next visit in one step. You need Create appointments.

1. Open the appointment and select Actions › Create follow-up appointment.
2. Set the Date, time & duration.
3. Select Book follow-up.

The follow-up is for the same patient, with the same clinician, priority and room, and its type is Follow up. Modules can carry over their own links too. For example, Treatments carries over linked treatments. You see Follow-up booked, with View appointment to open it.