Online Appointment Booking Setup

Online Appointment Booking Settings

Feature is available for Grow Package users

Enabling this feature allows your patients to book appointments online around the clock. Your customers can access your Online Appointment Booking Page anytime to pick an appointment slot that works for them.

SETUP

To set up and activate Online Appointment Booking, click on the Appointments tab at the top of the page. Then click Settings to create a customizable online booking page for your office. You will also have to make sure you toggle the switch at the top right-hand side to Active. 

Here in Settings, you can set the availability of days and time slots, add the Insurances that you accept, and add your providers, services, and contact details to create a smooth booking process. 

You can set up PBN's online appointment booking as a Self-scheduling system in which appointments are posted directly to the practice Schedule or as a Request appointment system in which the practice approves appointments.

Auto-update the PMS with the booked appointments (checkbox)

• If checked - Once an appointment is booked online, it will be automatically posted back to the schedule in your practice management system in real-time. Since we can read your PMS - we can fill your open appointments in real-time.

• If not checked - The appointment will be requested, and you can approve or contact the patient. Check the Schedule and Action Needed notifications for Pending appointments waiting to be approved. (See screenshots below)

Insurances

You can choose to ask patients for their insurance information - click on Setup Insurances to select the list of Insurance that you accept. If you do not find the Insurance in our list, you can also add a custom insurance. You can also customize the message that will be displayed to patients after they enter their Insurance info.

Providers

Select providers that will be taking online appointments. You can assign them to chair(s), upload a photo, add a bio, and add additional blockouts when editing. Once done, toggle the provider panel to active.

A crucial step to adding Providers to the Online Booking is to make sure the Provider is set to active under Settings > Employees.

Followed by setting the Office and Provider hours by going to Settings > Office and Provider Hours to ensure your office and provider hours have been entered correctly for open days' start, lunch, and end times. This is CRITICAL to display the appropriate times that will be available for booking on your schedule. 

Visit Types

In this section, you can control the types of visits that can be booked online. These will be the options available to any patient scheduling online. You can create visit types for new exams, recalls, emergencies, etc. Select the appointment type from the drop-down list and choose the providers who will be available for that appointment type.

Advanced Settings

Each appointment type also gives you the option to include advanced settings by selecting the gear wheel next to the Active toggle. Below are the additional settings that can be set. 

Appointment Availability

Here, you can set Appointment Time intervals to be 10 or 15 minutes. You can also choose when the soonest appointment is available in days or hours and when the farthest appointment is available, between 1-12 months out. 

Cluster appointments

To offer only the time slots that are next to other scheduled appointments in that chair for days when there are no appointments, we will offer the first available appointments and then cluster from there on.

Provider Time Availability

We will only offer appointments that have no conflict with provider availability on a different chair at the same time.

Scheduling Link

With everything set up, all that's left is to make your scheduling link available. You can find this under the Widgets tab on the left. From here, you will find the link that you can send to your patient to schedule online. From here you can also decide on the color scheme of the booking site. 

This link can be listed or communicated in many ways:

• The widget can be embedded on the practice website as a Button.
• It can be embedded in the Web Chat icon.
• The link can also be shared with patients via email and text messages sent from PBN.
• The link can also be added to your Social Media, Google Business Listing, Google Ads, Email Signature, etc.

Make sure the feature is active with the switch at the top right.

For Open Dental Users

An additional setting is available for Open Dental Users, which allows them to alter how we view blocks on the schedule. By default, any block added to the schedule will remove that time from the online appointment booking availability. The option below sets us to only remove times from blocks with the Block Appointment Scheduling selected in Open Dental. This allows you to create blocks for appointment times that you still want available through online booking.