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Restrict certain patients when booking online

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OceanMD Support
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Ocean provides many options to set who can book into your providers' schedules.

Restrict to patients who have a chart in your EMR

You can restrict online booking to only patients who have a chart in your EMR.

  1. 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.
  2. Click Edit next to the booking link you would like to edit.
  3. 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.

Restrict to patients who have a certain primary provider

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.

  1. 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.
  2. Click Edit next to the provider's schedule you would like to edit.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

Individual patient level restrictions

Relevant EMR Field

PS Suite

Users can download the "Online Booking Patient Settings.cfm" custom form and import it into your PS Suite EMR (by following Steps 2 & 3 in this support article).

  • Once imported into PS Suite, insert the custom form into the relevant patient chart, and use the settings on 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.

When a restriction is applied using the custom form, the relevant Ocean Restriction Term(s) is/are automatically added in the 'Comments' field of the patient chart. When the patient attempts to book online, Ocean checks the 'Comments' field for the presence of any Ocean Restriction Terms. Restrictions can be removed or changed by updating the custom form found in the patient chart, or by directly editing the 'Comments' field of the patient chart

  • As an alternative to using the custom form, you can refer to the Ocean Restriction Terms table below, and manually enter the relevant restriction term(s) directly into the 'Comments' field of the patient chart.

Med Access

  • Users can add the relevant Ocean Restriction Term(s) in the 'Notes' field (under the Care Assignments & Notes heading) of the patient's chart to apply individual patient-level restrictions. See the table below for a full list of Ocean Restriction Terms.

Accuro

  • Users can add the relevant Ocean Restriction Term(s) in the 'Paper Chart' field of the patient's chart to apply individual patient-level restrictions. See the table below for a full list of Ocean Restriction Terms.

OSCAR Pro

  • Users can add the relevant Ocean Restriction Term(s) in the 'Notes' field of the patient's master record to apply individual patient-level restrictions. See the table below for a full list of Ocean Restriction Terms.

Ocean Restriction Terms

Term Restriction
"no ob" or "no online booking" Prevents the patient from being able to book online.
"ob#days " or "ob q# days" or "ob q# d"

Where "#" is a number. This 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.

If both patient-level restrictions and appointment-level restrictions have been applied, the restriction with the higher value will apply. For example:

  • If the patient-level restriction is 10 days and the appointment-level restriction is 5 days - the patient cannot book for 10 days, but everyone else can book in 5 days.
  • E.g., If the patient-level restriction is 5 days but the appointment-level restriction is 10 days - the patient cannot book for 10 days (like all other patients).
  • E.g., If the patient-level restriction is 5 days but there is no appointment-level type restriction - the patient cannot book for 5 days, but there is no restriction for any other patients.
#+min Where # is a number. This ensures appointments for this patient are always booked for "#" minutes, regardless 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.
Restricting patients based on their answer in the booking form

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. Two common examples are provided below:

Prevent Booking Based on a "Yes/No" Question

  • In this example, the patient is unable to book online since they responded "Yes" to the COVID-19 screening question. If the patient responded "No", they would be able to proceed with booking online.

Configuration

Prerequisite

  • Add a new Section/Page before the appointment type selection Section/Page.
  • In the newly created Section/Page, create your desired question item with the corresponding 'Yes'/'No' response options.

  • Within the 'Scripting and More' tab for the item created in Step C, note value in the the 'Item reference' field.

    For clarity, it is recommended you customize this to a recognizable term related to the respective eForm item - e.g., the term 'covid' was chosen for this example.

  • Add a new eForm item, and set the item 'Type 'to 'Label'.

    Within the 'Caption' field, enter the message that should be presented to the patient if they "fail" the screening question above.

  • Within the 'Scripting and More' tab for the item created in Step E, set the 'Field validation' setting to 'Javascript condition'.

  • Within the 'Validation Javascript Condition' field, enter a Javascript expression that prevents the patient from being able to proceed.

    For example, the expression covid.r != "Y" evaluates to false if 'Yes' is chosen in the question above. This logic prevents the patient from proceeding to book online.

    Optionally enter an additional 'Validation Error Message' to display in-line if the patient attempts to continue booking online.

  • Within the 'Show this field if' setting, enter a Javascript expression that controls the display of the label item.

    For example, the expression covid.r == 'Y' evaluates to true if 'Yes' is chosen in the question above. This triggers the visibility of the label item (i.e., shown only when the patient "fails" the screening question by answering 'Yes').

  • Press 'Save Changes' in the bottom right corner of the eForm editor.

Prevent Booking Specific Appointment Type(s) Based on a Patient Demographic

  • In this example, the patient is unable to book online since they are not old enough to book a "Senior Flu Shot" appointment.

Configuration

Prerequisites

  • Add a new eForm item anywhere below the Appointment Type question. Set the 'Type' to 'Label', and leave the 'Caption' blank.
  • Within the 'Scripting and More' tab, set the 'Field validation' setting to 'Javascript condition'.

  • Using the 'Validation Javascript Condition', enter a Javascript condition to be evaluated. If the condition evaluates to true, the condition is satisfied.

    For example, the condition appointmentType.r == "Senior Flu Shot" && pt.GetAge() >= 65 is used to verify if the patient is 65 years or older after they have selected the 'Senior Flu Shot' appointment type.

    You can replace the 'Senior Flu Shot' label within the condition with your own Appointment Label, and adjust the age as needed.

    Similarly, you can make use of additional ScriptPatient ("pt") Functions to verify other patient properties.

  • Within the 'Validation Error Message' setting, enter the error message that should be displayed to a patient when they do not pass the validation condition.

  • Within the 'Show this field if' setting, enter a Javascript expression that controls the display of the label item.

    For example, the expression appointmentType.r == "Senior Flu Shot" evaluates to true if the 'Senior Flu Shot' option is chosen when selecting the type of appointment to book.

    This triggers the visibility of the label item, however since the 'Caption' field is left blank, it will simply appear as a blank line until the patient attempts to continue booking (at which time they are presented with the 'Validation Error Message' you configured).

  • Press 'Save Changes' in the bottom right corner of the eForm editor.
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Guide to Online Booking