Calendar Guide- Using the Calendar for appointments & events

Recommended Reading

Review the Calendar Guide- How to set up the provider calendar article first to learn about the various configuration options you have for the Elation calendar to optimize your experience.

 

Contents

• Viewing the Calendar
  • Standard View
  • Expanded View
    • Using User Groups for the Expanded View
• Adding appointments to the Calendar
• Adding event to the Calendar
• Managing appointments (in-person or virtual)
  • Edit appointment features
• Finding a Patient's upcoming and past appointments

   

Viewing the Calendar

The Elation Calendar is designed to provide an intuitive experience for managing appointments and providing visibility into your practice's schedule.

• User Tips:

  • If there is only one provider in the practice, the Calendar will always default to showing that provider's Calendar.
  • If you are provider viewing the Calendar in a multi-provider practice, the Calendar will always default to showing your Calendar.
  • If you are a staff viewing the Calendar in a multi-provider practice, the Calendar will default to showing the Calendar for the provider you set as your Default physician under "Settings" -> "User Settings".

In the Calendar you can

• Utilize the date picker or arrows at the top to navigate to different days
• Click "Today" to see your schedule for the day
• Select which provider's schedule you want to view (for multi-provider practices)
• Print your daily schedule
• Search for a patient's appointment history
• Add appointments or events
• Manage appointments or events

To make it easy to either check your schedule quickly or use a more in-depth view to manage your practice schedule, there are two calendar views available. 

 

Standard View

This is the default view which allows you to access the daily schedule quickly for each provider. You can click "Expand" to view the schedule for multiple days or multiple providers.

    

 

Expanded View 

The Expanded View allows you to take a more in-depth view of the calendar by day, week or view multiple provider schedules at once. Select "All Providers" to view all of the providers schedules side-by-side to help you manage the practice schedule. Click the "x" on the right hand side to return to the Standard View.

 

Using User Groups for the Expanded View

You can utilize the User Groups feature to group certain providers together to easily view their calendars side by side. For example you may wish to set up groups by availability, specialty or location. To set up user groups:

1. Navigate to "Settings"
2. Under Admin Users Only, click "User Groups"
3. Click "+Add User Group" 
4. Enter the User Group Name and then search for and select the Providers or Staff to be added to the group
5. Click "Save" when you are done
6. Repeat for as many user groups as you wish to create

By clicking the drop down menu, highlighted in the red box below, you can filter by which User Group's calendar you wish to view. Learn more about User Groups in this article.

 

 

Adding appointments to the Calendar

1. You have two options for adding appointments to the calendar:
   1. Click on the blank space in the calendar to create an appointment at that time frame
   2. Click the "+ Appointment" button
2. Fill in the following required fields
   • Patient Name
   • Appointment Type
     • User Tip: Adjust your appointment type settings here using our Calendar Guide. By selecting the appropriate Appointment Type the corresponding settings will be immediately applied to the appointment including duration, color, tag, In-Person/Virtual settings, and any linked Visit Note Templates and Patient Forms.
   • Start Time
   • Duration
   • Provider
3. You can also utilize these optional fields to add more details to each appointment
   • Description- chief complain (CC)
     • User Tip: Text in this field will automatically be added to the Exam Reason (CC) field in the Visit Note created for the appointment. 
   • Location (Practice Location)
     • User Tip: Optionally, Premium EHR Users can turn on a feature to require practice location selection when scheduling appointments for patients. If you are a Premium EHR User and you would like Elation to turn this feature on for you, ask an Admin Level User in the practice use the "I need help" -> "Contact Elation Support" button to send a request to our Support Team and a member of the Support Team will turn this feature on for you. Click here to learn more about this feature.
   • In person/Virtual
     • Click here to learn more about Elation's Integrated Video feature.
   • Visit instructions for patient
     • User Tips: 

       • If you chose Virtual above, Elation will automatically send your pre-set virtual visit instructions to the patients. 
       • You can add extra details on top of the virtual visit instructions by entering text into this box
4. Click "Save" to add the appointment to the Calendar.

 

 

 

Adding events to the Calendar

1. You have two options for adding events to the calendar:
   1. Click on the blank space in the calendar to create an appointment at that time frame
   2. Click the "+ Appointment" button
2. Choose "Other Event" and enter the Event Title, Date, Start Time and End Time
3. Set whether or not you want the appointment to repeat under Recurrence. The options are:
   • Frequency
     • Don't Repeat
     • Weekly​
     • Monthly
   • Ends
     • Never
     • On a specific date
4. Click "Create Event" to save the event to your Calendar.

 

Managing appointments

Click in the shaded area of the appointment to open the appointment popover box. From here you can:

• view the patient's appointment details
• edit or delete the appointment (1)
• resend virtual visit instructions or medical history forms to the patient (2)
• manage the appointment status (3)
• navigate to the patient chart or demographics window (4)
• start your video consult (5)
  • Click here to learn more about Elation's Integrated Video feature.
• start the appointment's visit note (6) 

 

User Tip:
The button to "Start Visit Note" (6) will only appear for appointments scheduled for today. When you click this, visit note automation will be applied to the visit note. This means the visit note will automatically be populated with information based on your settings for that appointment type, including visit note templates and billing notes. For more information on Visit Note Automation read the Visit Note Documentation Guide- Using visit note automation for appointments article.

 

 

Edit Appointment Features

By clicking "Edit" appointment, you can insert patient payment amounts and add billing notes. You can also view an Activity Log of the appointment to help keep track of what changes were made, what notifications where sent and when notifications were sent.

 

 

Find a Patient's upcoming & past appointments

In the Elation Calendar you can search for a patient's upcoming and past appointments. To search for a patient's appointments:

1. Search for the patient's name (in the box highlighted in red in the image below)
2. View the patient's appointments pop-up to view upcoming and past appointments
3. Click on any upcoming appointment to edit the details

 

 


 

Related Articles

• Calendar Guide- How to set up the provider calendar
• Elation Integrated Video- Connecting with patients using video
• User Groups Guide- Simplifying office messages & expanded calendar view
• Visit Note Documentation Guide- Using visit note automation for appointments
• Telehealth: Billing & Workflow Recommendations