I have been playing around with it, but do not feel I can use it yet. I'll explain everything below.
Basically, the system seems to work quite well. It is rather complex to set up, but then so was Appointment Quest. It sends you a message in UD about the schedule, and can synchronize the UD and AC schedules. For my tests I only let it sync AC-> UD so far.
You can allow patients to schedule their own appointments. Patients choose what type of appointment they wish, and the system shows the availability for that type of appointment. I forgot to deactivate this feature when I finished testing it, and one of our patients promptly used it to schedule an appointment. Luckily the time was available. I have asked that they add a form to the schedule so that you can have the patient check off the reason for , say , a sick visit. They have agreed to add this in a future release.
Internally, you have a typical schedule calender with time blocks that are highlighted when a schedule is booked in that time slot.
Now, what I consider the bad.
1)Currently, I do not see a way in UD to block off a day or portion of a day other than to make an appointment for a fake patient. So for holidays, or if you just cant be in for half a day, that's what you need to do.
2)They just removed the ability for the system to send a confirmation email of appointments. Tobin told me they were going to do this. I strongly suggested that they reconsider, since it was only an option. Everything you do on the internet sends you a confirmation email so people are accustomed to this, and it really does help with patient satisfaction and it prevents annoying phone calls. Apparently, some early users thought it was confusing and that is why they removed the feature.
3) This is what is stopping me from using this as our scheduler. Regardless of the scheduling rules/schedules, internal users can schedule appointments of any type for any time without restriction. So when I tested it, I made appointments on Sunday, and at 6:30 AM. We have had many problems in the past with receptionist making appointments incorrectly. Even I do it on rare occasions. But this can cause so much acrimony between the office and the patients, I do all I can to prevent this. I did suggest to Tobin that they add the capability to block internal users from double-booking or from scheduling for "off-calender/schedule" times. I feel this should be at least an option, and even if activated the scheduler should have to click a special "override" button to allow this. Then, it is a very conscious decision to overbook an appointment, or to book an appointment during lunch, or before/after your normal hours of operation.
I'd be interested in what others think of this last issue of mine. I haven't written in to UD about it yet, but I intend to do so and ask that they seriously consider this feature enhancement.
