babycat
whiskey in a teacup
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- Apr 5, 2008
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If an appointment is rescheduled or canceled, would you even know it had been in the system? My understanding is it clears out the field for the next name?
I can't answer for every office, but about 5 years ago I worked for a medical office, and we were instructed that even when a person rescheduled, we didn't delete the initially scheduled appointment from the log. We simply right clicked and chose the "reschedule" option and it left a green arrow icon and a space for a note about why/when the person wanted to reschedule, if there was one. That way if we ever needed to know, or if a patient ever needed to know when they were last in, or last scheduled, we had a full history of our communication.
So looking at the (computer system) calendar, if a patient rescheduled the date would look just like a regular appointment but with a green arrow on it, indicating that the appt was rescheduled for another time.
On hard copy items (paper, etc) we were NOT allowed to erase, or white anything out. Everything had to have ONE solitary line drawn through it, so it was still legible, with our initials and a note indicating the reason for the change. It was also color coded.
We also went through the appts at the end of the day and made sure that the reschedules, cancels, missed appointments, and kept appointments in the computer jibed with the hard copy list. :crazy:
I'm sure not EVERY office did this, but my boss was pretty fastidious and liked to always be able to to trust that we knew exactly what was going on