Ocean provides many options to set who can book into your providers' schedules.
You can restrict online booking to only patients who have a chart in your EMR.
- Login to the Ocean Portal. Click the "Menu" button in the top left corner and select "Online Booking". Click the "Settings" button in the top right corner.
- Click Edit next to the booking link you would like to edit.
- Uncheck Do you want to limit online booking to patients with a chart in your EMR?. This will allow any patient to book an appointment online. Please note that you will need to create a new chart in your EMR for these brand new patients. Refer to: Accepting brand new patients for online booking.
You can restrict a provider's schedule to accept only patients from a certain provider(s) at your clinic. This could mean a provider accepting their own patients, or a medical resident accepting another physician's patients.
Note: Please refer to Your EMR and Ocean Online Booking: What you need to know for details on which provider fields Ocean can evaluate to determine the patient's provider in your EMR.
- Login to the Ocean Portal. Click the "Menu" button in the top left corner and select "Online Booking". Click the "Settings" button in the top right corner.
- Click Edit next to the provider's schedule you would like to edit.
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Below the 'Restrictions' heading, locate the 'Who is allowed to book into this schedule?' setting, and select Patients with Selected Providers. Use the blue 'Add Provider' button to locate the provider(s) whose patients you would like to allow to book into this schedule. Their name(s) will appear below the table under the "Selected Providers" heading.
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For certain EMRs, you can specify the specific EMR field(s) which Ocean should evaluate to determine if the listed provider is a match. Specific information on the provider field mapping options for each EMR can be found within the Set Up Provider Schedules article.
For PSS users, download this "Online Booking Patient Settings.cfm" custom form and import it into PSS. Use this custom form to restrict patients from booking online entirely, restrict how frequently they can book appointments online, or to set a minimum booking duration for their appointments.
For Med Access users, you can add special terms in the Notes field (Care Assignments & Notes heading) of a patient's chart to apply individual patient-level restrictions. See the table below for a full list of these restrictions.
For Accuro users, you can add special terms in the Paper Chart field of a patient's chart to apply individual patient-level restrictions. See the table below for a full list of these restrictions.
For OSCAR Pro users, you can add special terms in the Notes field of a patient's chart to apply individual patient-level restrictions. See the table below for a full list of these restrictions.
| Term | Restriction |
|---|---|
| "no ob" or "no online booking" | This won't allow the patient to book online. |
| "ob#days", "ob q# days", "ob q# d" | Where "#" is a number. Will restrict the patient from booking online again until the "#" of days has passed. E.g. adding "ob7days" will ensure a patient waits 7 days to book another appointment online. |
| #+min | Where # is a number. Ensures appointments for this patient are always booked for "#" minutes, irrespective of the appointment duration set in the appointment type configuration page. E.g. "30+min" will ensure the patient is always booked for 30 minutes when they book an appointment online. |
- Patients who have been restricted from booking online using the above restrictions are presented with an error message indicating that their booking could not be processed.
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You can customize your booking form to include questions prior to allowing patients to select their appointment type. You can apply validation to prevent a patient from booking online if they answer a certain way in your booking form.
Add a section prior to the appointment type selection and configure sections to appear as separate pages. Add a label item type with validation that will prevent the patient from being able to proceed. The "Validation Javascript Condition" must be the opposite of the "Show This Field If:" statement.
