There are two ways you can block off time slots to make them unavailable for online booking.
Are you blocking off a time slot that follows a pattern (e.g. lunch hour every day)?
Block off in Ocean.
Edit your Booking Schedule and use the Day/Time Restrictions to set times for Ocean to ignore when allowing patients to book online.
In the example below, I have marked the following days and times as not bookable: all day Saturday and Sundays, between 12am - 9am Monday to Friday, between 12pm - 1pm Monday to Friday and between 5pm - 11:55pm Monday to Friday.
Are you blocking off a one-off time slot (e.g. vacation day or sick day)?
It is best to block off individual time slots that do not follow a recurring pattern directly in your EMR.
- Set Booking Time and Clear Booking Time: Use the 'Set Booking Time' and 'Clear Booking Time' functionality within PSS to indicate non-bookable time slots in your schedule. Unavailable time slots will be denoted with a violet "x" in the PS Suite schedule.
- Booking Filler Appointments: Time slots with patients assigned are unavailable for online booking. You can also block off a time slot by putting a description in the "Details" field of the time slot in your PS Suite schedule - such as "no online booking", "lunch", "meeting", etc. When the "Details" field is filled, Ocean will see that slot as unavailable.
- Working Hours: Ocean can read from the working hours setting and will not book appointments on dates and time slots that are marked as non-working hours.
- Booking Filler Appointments: Time slots with patients assigned are unavailable for online booking. To do this, first click the appointment time in Med Access that you want to block off. Next, click "Menu", and then click "Set Type of Appt", and finally click "Blocked". From here, you should be able to input "no online booking" in the description field and specify the time frame you desire to block off.
- Book Day Off: Days that have been marked as Book Day Off will not appear bookable online.
- Booking Filler Appointments: To do this, first click the appointment time that you want to block off. Next, add some detail in the “Notes” field of the appointment (e.g. “Lunch” or “Teaching”), click “Ok”. Ocean will make this slot unavailable for online booking.
- The "Do Not Book" feature: Using the “Do Not Book” feature available in the OSCAR Pro schedule will prevent those time slot(s) from being bookable through Ocean online booking. To do this, first click the appointment time that you want to block off. Next, click the 'Not book' button, and then click 'Add Appointment'. This will prevent the time slot(s) from being bookable through Ocean online booking.
- Booking Filler Appointments: To do this, first click the appointment time that you want to block off. Next, add some detail in the “Notes” field of the appointment (e.g. “Lunch” or “Teaching”), click “Add Appointment”. This will prevent the time slot(s) from being bookable through Ocean online booking.
