Summary
Check in alerts on the patient check in screen can be customized to your office preferences. These alerts can be set in Edit > Practice Information > Check In to be utilized at the practice level/for all locations. Alternately, you may choose to skip the practice level settings and instead use the location specific settings that can be found by navigating to Edit > Set Up >Locations > Check In. The specialized check in alerts allow you to set up an alert for late or early check in, or for past due balances on the responsible party or insurance side or both. The patient locator bar will display the alert. The locator bar can flash a custom color and display the amount of time the appointment is early/late or a financial alert. In this article we will review how to set these up and what you can expect when you start utilizing the Check In Alerts.
Minutes Early/Minutes Late Check-In Alerts
In the Minutes Early setting, you can add an alert to show on the locator bar when a patient has checked in early for an appointment. You can determine how many minutes early you would like for the alert to trigger. For example, a patient has an appointment at 9 a.m. and they check-in to the appointment at 8:45 A.M. If you would like there to be an alert on the locator bar to notify you of this, you would set the Early Check-In Alert for 15 minutes. When the patient checks in at least 15 minutes early, the "waiting" indicator will flash the custom color you have chosen in the Appointment Locator Bar Alert Color.
A note will display inside the appointment information letting you know the patient has checked in early and by how much.
The same steps will be taken to set the alert for minutes late check in. The system will alert you by displaying/flashing your chosen custom color when the patient checks in late for the appointment.
Along with the custom color in the patient locator bar, a note will display inside the appointment information alerting you to how many minutes the patient checked in late.
Financial Alerts for Patient Check In
In order to create a Financial Alert upon patient check in, you would again navigate to the Edit > Practice Information > Check In tab. Here you will utilize the "alert on check in if past due is greater than" box. You will select your criteria you would like to be alerted to by amount and how many days past due. You can also select for responsible party balance only or responsible party and insurance.
When a patient checks in that has a balance that meets the parameters of your settings, the custom color will appear in the patient locator bar and a note will appear on the appointment indicating what the alert is for. For a financial alert, you will see the custom color flash and also the note "$ RP$" or one including insurance if those parameters are chosen in the set up.
Which Appointment Statuses will your Alerts display on?
One final step in setting up your Early/Late or Financial Check In Alerts is to edit the APPOINTMENT STATUS to show the alerts on the patient locator bar when the patient moves between appointment statuses during the appointment. This will be set in Edit > Set Up > Appointment Statuses. Edit the appointment status to show these alerts on the locator bar, such as Waiting status, and select "Flash on Check In Alert".
*This option will need to be chosen for each appointment status you would like alerts to flash for on the patient locator bar. (front desk, waiting, seated, etc.)
As always, if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to reach out to Cloud 9 Support by emailing us at cloud9support@planetdds.com, or chatting us online using the chat bubble on the lower right at https://cloud9support.planetdds.com/hc/en-us, or giving us a call during our business hours of 8:00 AM EST to 8:00 PM EST at the 1.800.394.6050 option 2