VOW Group Scheduling User Guide Virtual OfficeWare, LLC 111 Ryan Court, Suite 200 Pittsburgh, PA 15205 Ph: 888.950.0688 www.vowhs.com
Table of Contents Summary... 2 Prerequisites... 2 Launch VOW Group Scheduling... 3 Settings... 4 Create Group Appointments... 6 Managing Group Appointments... 10 Adding or Removing Patients... 10 Adding or Removing Procedures... 13 Selecting which Appointment to Manage... 14 Checking In Patients... 16 Collecting Payments... 17 Checking Out... 18 Cancelling Group Appointments... 21 1
Summary VOW Group Scheduling is a web-based application that is designed to allow Centricity users to create and manage group appointments in one location, without having to manage each individual appointment in Centricity. It allows for creation of the group appointment, adding patients and procedures to the group appointment, checking in patients individually, collecting payments from each patient, and checking out all of the group appointment patients at one time. Checking out the group appointment will also create the visits for each patient in Centricity s Billing module, with the selected procedures and the collected payment applied. The application builds group appointments from dummy patients in Centricity. These patients need to be created in Centricity and then be scheduled for an appointment. VOW Group Scheduling will then build the group appointment from this currently scheduled appointment in Centricity. This application is launched from a button on the main menu of Centricity, and any active Centricity user can use the application. Prerequisites Before VOW Group Scheduling can be used, there are several components that must be installed and set up. Please ensure that the following sections from the VOW Products Installation Guide are completed prior to attempting to use VOW Group Scheduling: VOW API Installation VOW Client Wrapper Installation VOW Group Scheduling Also, in Centricity, be sure to set up at least one dummy patient that is to be used for group appointments. This patient does not need to have insurance information entered. This patient must also be scheduled for an appointment in Centricity prior to creating a group appointment in VOW Group Scheduling. Once all prerequisites have been met, VOW Group Scheduling is ready for use. 2
Launch VOW Group Scheduling On the main menu of Centricity, click the VOW Group Scheduling button. This will launch VOW Group Scheduling to the User Login screen. Enter the username and password of an active Centricity user, and click Login. A message will display stating that the login request is processing. Username intentionally obscured. Note that the first time this is run it can take several moments for the login to succeed. The application needs to establish all connections with the VOW API, Centricity, and Group Scheduling databases, and the initial establishment of these connections can take some time. Successfully logging in will display the Home screen. 3
There are four different options available on the Home screen of VOW Group Scheduling: Create this is where group appointments will be created for managing within VOW Group Scheduling Manage this is where all group appointments can be managed Settings this is used to select the default dummy patients that will be used to create the group appointments Help This is the help section of the application This document will cover each of these screens in the order that would normally occur during day-today use of the application. Settings For initial setup, click the Settings icon on the Home screen. This will open the Settings screen. 4
Enter a name or a patient ID to search for a Centricity dummy patient that is to be used for group appointments and click find. This will return a list of all matching dummy patients in Centricity. The results are listed in pages, with 10 results per page. The page controls can be found below the results list. To add a dummy patient as a Group Patient in VOW Group Scheduling, simply click the Add icon for that patient. The patient will now be added to the list of Selected Group Patients. 5
To remove a patient from the Group Patient list, simply click the Remove icon for that patient. Once all Group Patients have been added, click the Home button to return to the Home screen. At this point, group appointments can now be created. To add new patients to the Group Patient list, simply return to the Settings screen and repeat the previous steps. Create Group Appointments To create a Group Appointment, click the Create icon on the Home screen. 6
This will open the Create Appointment screen. NOTE: At any point during Group Appointment creation, the Home button can be used to cancel the creation process and return to the Home screen. This does not save any work in progress. Give the appointment a name that will be used to within VOW Group Scheduling to keep track of and manage this Group Appointment. This name can be any combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. 7
Next, select a Group Patient from the drop-down menu to see a list of available appointments. Once a patient has been selected, the Group Patient Available Appointments table will display a list of all currently scheduled appointments in Centricity for the selected Group Patient that have not been assigned to a Group Appointment. Any appointments that have been assigned to a Group Appointment will not display in this list. The table will display the date of the appointment, the time of the appointment, and the provider that the appointment is scheduled with. To filter the list of displayed appointments, use the Date field to select the specific desired date to search. 8
The Provider drop-down can also be used to filter the results by specific provider. Both the drop-down and date fields can be used in conjunction to narrow the results to exact date and provider needed. Once the desired appointment has been found, highlight the appointment and click Create. This will launch the Manage Appointment screen with the newly created Group Appointment. The Group Appointment can now be managed as needed. 9
Managing Group Appointments Once a Group Appointment has been created, the Manage Appointments screen will be displayed with information for the newly created Group Appointment. The Appointment Name, Provider, and Date/Time of the Group Appointment will be displayed along the top of the screen. Adding or Removing Patients To add patients to this Group Appointment, select the Patients tab, and use the provided search fields to find the desired Centricity patient. As in the Settings screen, the results are paged, and the page controls can be found below the results list. To add the selected patient to the list of Scheduled Patients for this Group Appointment, click the Add icon for that patient. The patient will now be added to the list of Schedule Patients. 10
The patient will also be added to the Centricity Scheduling module in the same time slot as the Group Patient s appointment as an overbooked appointment with a status of Scheduled, and will keep the same provider and appointment type as the Group Patient. Patient name intentionally obscured. To remove a patient from the Scheduled Patients list, simply click the Remove icon for that patient. Removing a patient from the list of Scheduled Patients cancels the Centricity appointment with a status of Cancel/Patient. NOTE: If a patient is removed from the list of Scheduled Patients and then re-added later, the application does not create a new appointment. Instead, it changes the status of the originally scheduled appointment from Cancel/Patient back to Scheduled, essentially reopening the original appointment. To view patient demographic information for a Scheduled Patient, click the Info icon for that patient. This will open the Patient Demographics screen, with an overview of important demographic information. 11
To view open cases for a Scheduled Patient, click the Case icon for that patient. This will open the Open Cases screen, with an overview of important information regarding any open cases for the selected patient. Patient and case information intentionally obscured. Continue adding patients until all are added to the Group Appointment as necessary. 12
Once patients are added to the Group Appointment, they will also be added to the Centricity Scheduling module in the same time frame as the Group Patient s scheduled appointment as overbooked appointments with a status of Scheduled, and will keep the same Provider and Appointment Type as the Group Patient. Patient names intentionally obscured. Adding or Removing Procedures To add procedures to this Group Appointment, select the Procedures tab, and use the provided search fields to find the desired procedure code. To add the procedure to this Group Appointment, click the Add icon for that procedure. This will add the procedure to the list of Assigned Procedures. 13
To remove a procedure from the Group Appointment, click the Remove icon for that procedure. Continue adding procedures until all necessary procedures have been assigned. Once complete, the Manage Appointment screen can be closed by clicking the Home icon to return to the Home screen. Selecting which Appointment to Manage To manage existing appointments, click the Manage icon on the Home screen. 14
This brings up the Select Appointment to Manage screen. Use the provided search fields to find the desired appointment to manage. 15
Highlight the desired appointment and click Select to open the Manage Appointment screen for that appointment. Checking In Patients Once a Scheduled Patient has arrived for the Group Appointment, they can be checked in by clicking the Check In icon for that patient. This will change the icon to a green checkmark to indicate which patients have been checked in. This also disables the Remove icon for that patient, and enables the Payment icon. This will also change the appointment status in Centricity to Checked In. Patient names intentionally obscured. 16
Clicking the Check In icon again will change the appointment status back to Scheduled, re-enable the Remove icon and disable the Payment icon. Collecting Payments Once a patient has been checked in, payment can be collected by clicking the Payment icon for that patient. This will bring up the Collect Payment screen. To collect a payment, select the payment type, enter the amount paid, and click Save Payment. Once complete, the payment will be saved and will be displayed in the row for that Scheduled Patient. NOTE: Currently the application is collecting all payments as one payment, and is overwriting the original payment when a new one is entered. So, if a patient pays $10 and then later pays another $10 17
for the same appointment prior to checking out, the second payment would need to be entered as $20 instead of a second payment of $10. Otherwise, the payment will only be saved as a $10 payment. Clicking on the displayed amount will reopen the payment screen and display the current payment that has been collected for the patient. Once a payment has been collected, the Check In icon becomes disabled and this state cannot be changed. To re-enable the Check In button, reopen the payment screen and click Clear Payment. This will clear the collected payment and re-enable the Check-In button, so the patient can be removed from this state if need be. Checking Out Once patients have been checked in and payments collected, and the appointment is complete, click the Check Out button on the Manage Appointment screen, which will now be enabled. 18
This will bring up the Check Out screen. There are two options on this screen; one to create a new batch, and one to select an existing batch to post payments against. To check out the appointment and create a new batch for all payments, simply leave the Batch Name field as-is and click Check Out/Create New Batch. 19
This will update the scheduled appointments that were checked in to a status of Completed, create visits for those patients in Centricity s Billing module, and add the selected procedures and collected payments for each patient to their individual visit. This will also apply the collected payments to the newly created batch in Centricity. Any patients that were not marked as Checked In will have their appointment status updated to No Show. Alternatively, to select an existing batch to post the payments to, type the name of the desired batch in the Batch Name field and click Find to display a list of all matching batches in Centricity. Highlight the desired batch and click Check Out/Use Selected Batch to complete the Check Out process. This will perform the same functions as checking out and creating a new batch, with the exception that the payments will now be posted to the selected batch instead of creating a new one. 20
Cancelling Group Appointments To cancel a Group Appointment, click the Cancel Appointment button on the Manage Appointment screen. This brings up the Cancel Appointment screen. Select a Cancellation Reason from the drop-down menu, enter notes into the Appointment Notes field, and click Cancel Appointment to cancel the Group Appointment. All appointments associated with the selected Group Appointment will be cancelled with the reason and appointment notes selected, and the Group Appointment will no longer appear in the list of available appointments to manage on the Select Appointment to Manage screen. 21