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Online Booking FAQ

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Online Booking Metrics

In some cases, clinics may be required to capture and report on their clinic's Online Booking usage for measurement and reporting purposes. This article explains three options that are available for clinics to gather various metrics on appointments booked online through Ocean.

Generate a Report from your EMR

Any appointments that are booked online through Ocean include the term "(booked online)" within the actual appointment booking. Using the searching/reporting functionalities within your EMR, you can key on this specific term to generate a report of all appointments booked online through Ocean.

For additional support in learning how to generate a search/report that keys in on this term within your EMR, please contact your EMR vendor.

The specific field that the "(booked online)" term can be found in varies depending on the EMR you are using. Select your EMR below for additional details on how this field will appear in your EMR.

PS Suite Med Access Accuro OSCAR Pro
  • For PS Suite, appointments booked online through Ocean have the "(booked online)" term added to the "Details" field of the appointment.

Export a Report from Ocean

Ocean stores online booking records for 180 days. You can download a .csv file at any time with a list of all appointments booked online in the past 180 days. Please see this article that walks through the steps to obtain this report. 

View Number of Active Schedules

  • To quickly determine your total number of active provider schedules in Ocean, navigate to your online booking settings (Open the Menu from the top left corner, choose Online Booking, and click Settings in the top right corner).
  • The total number of active provider schedules is shown in the top right area.

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Can I get a report of bookings made online?

You can export a .csv file of bookings made online.

  • Log into the Ocean Portal, click on the Menu button and select Online Booking. In the bottom left corner, click "Export".
  • Select your start and end date for your export. You can download data within a specific date range, or you can pull all data for the last 6 months by leaving both dates blank.

  • Select “Export unexported records only” if you would only like to export online bookings that have not been previously exported. If you would like previously exported records to be included, leave this box unchecked.

    Select “Mark records exported” to mark the online bookings as backed up, once you've completed the export.

  • Note: If this box is left unchecked, the next time the export is done, the previously exported online bookings will be pulled once again. 
  • Finally, click "Export". This will export your data in a .csv file that can be opened using Microsoft Excel.

Note: The export will contain patient health information and should be stored somewhere secure at your site.

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How can I control billing for my online booking schedule(s)?

All active provider schedules will be billed and all deactivated provider schedules will not be billed. To stop a provider's schedule from being billed (e.g. if they are on vacation or simply want to stop accepting appointments booked online for some time), you can easily stop billing by deactivating their schedule. 

Deactivate a provider's schedule.

  • 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.
  • Next to the Provider Schedules heading, click Configure.
  • To stop the billing for a provider schedule, simply click Deactivate next to the provider's schedule configuration. This will stop billing for that provider's schedule. You can easily reactivate schedules at any time by clicking Activate.

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Can I control when patients can cancel their appointments booked online?

A patient can receive a confirmation email of their appointment booked online by providing an email address after they have selected their appointment date and time slot. This confirmation email will include a button that allows the patient to cancel the appointment (prior to the appointment date and time). When a patient cancels their appointment, it will be removed from the EMR schedule immediately. In the Ocean Portal, the booking cancellation is denoted by a red strikethrough. Please note that the default cancellation is 0 hours.

To create a cancellation window for appointments booked online, you will need to add a formula item in your booking form. This formula item sets the cancellation window for the provider schedule its eForm is assigned to.

Add the ax_minHoursNoticeForCancellation item type in your booking form.

  • 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.
  • Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Edit Advanced Settings. This will reveal your booking form and post booking form.
  • Next to your booking form, click Edit. This will open the eForm editor.
  • In the eForm editor, click the green plus icon Add Item. In the General tab, set the caption to ax_minHoursNoticeForCancellation:$$. Set the item type to Formula.
  • In the Note Formatting tab, for the field "Create a note for this item:" select Never.
  • In the Scripting and More tab, set the item reference to ax_minHoursNoticeForCancellation, set "Show this field if:" false and in the Formula field, enter the number of hours for your cancellation window (e.g. entering 24 will allow patients to cancel their appointments 24 hours prior to their scheduled appointment via their cancellation email).

Warning:

If you switch to a different online booking eForm in the future, you will need to include this item type in your new booking form to retain the cancellation window.

If you decide to edit your online booking eForm, do not edit the items referenced "appointmentType", "appointmentDuration" or "reasonForVisit". These are special item types that set the appointment details in your EMR scheduler.

The appointment types configured from Step 1 will be generated in a section with the item reference “appointmentType” in this booking form.

The appointment durations configured from Step 1 will be generated in a section with the item reference “appointmentType” in this booking form.

The "reasonForVisit" item will populate the patients response in the details field of the appointment in your EMRs scheduler. 

It’s highly recommended that you do not edit these items in the booking form. 

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