Help Center Clinic Manager Appointments
Appointments
What it is
Appointments shows your patients' appointments from your EMR: booked, cancelled, checked out, and no-shows. The EMR is the system where you book patients (your electronic medical records software). It works with OptiMantra and Zenoti, each in its own way:
| OptiMantra | Zenoti | |
|---|---|---|
| How appointments arrive | OptiMantra sends each booking, cancellation, check-out and Superbill as it happens (four webhooks you add once) | Both ways: Zenoti sends each booking, move, status change and cancellation within seconds once the Zenoti webhook is set up (one webhook you add once, setup guide, step 6), and the portal still reads them every morning, on Sync now, and as often as you choose (Settings → EMR connection → Appointments; every hour by default) as the catch-up |
| Appointment name | Purchase Name | the Zenoti service name |
| Visit (last-visit date) | a check-out or a Superbill | a closed or checked-in appointment |
| No-show | possible no-show until staff confirm | Zenoti's own no-show mark, or a possible no-show |
| Past appointments | from the day the webhooks are added | a one-time catch-up, 3 months back by default |
Appointments come in by themselves through your OptiMantra webhooks. A webhook is a message OptiMantra sends to the portal the moment something happens. You set them up once: see "Connect OptiMantra" in the setup guides (four webhooks: Booking, Cancellation, Check Out, Superbill). You never type an appointment into the portal.
Who can see it
- The Appointments link in the top menu shows when Prescripta has turned the module on for your clinic and you
have View patients.
- Mark no-show, Mark attended and Back to booked need **Mark scheduled follow-up steps done (check-ins, lab
draws)**.
- New task needs the Tasks module and Create, update and complete tasks.
What happens when OptiMantra sends something
| In OptiMantra | In the portal |
|---|---|
| You book an appointment | The appointment appears as Booked. If you move it, the new date and time replace the old. |
| You cancel it | It shows Cancelled. If you book the same appointment again, it goes back to Booked. |
| You check the patient out | It shows Checked out. The patient's last visit becomes that day. |
| You save the Superbill | The visit's total and products are added to that day's appointment, and it counts as checked out. Saving the Superbill again (an edit) updates the same visit. It never counts twice. |
OptiMantra events arrive at the portal at once and are read on the next sync: every hour, every morning, or when someone clicks Sync now (Admin → Settings → EMR). For Zenoti, the table below shows what each Zenoti status becomes.
| Zenoti says | The portal shows |
|---|---|
| New, Confirmed | Booked |
| Checked in, Closed | Checked out (counts as a visit) |
| Cancelled | Cancelled |
| No show | No-show |
| An appointment that disappears from Zenoti | Cancelled, with the note "removed in Zenoti" (nothing is deleted) |
Zenoti breaks and open slots are not appointments and are left out.
With the Zenoti webhook on (Settings → EMR connection → Zenoti webhooks), a booking, a move, a check-in, a closed visit, a cancellation or a deleted booking reaches the portal within seconds and is applied the same way, the appointment's history then says Sent by Zenoti; one read by the scheduled check says Read from Zenoti. A status change for an appointment the portal has never seen makes the portal read Zenoti once (the next five weeks); if it is still not there, the event is set aside as "not understood" and the next scheduled check settles it. Nothing is ever guessed.
The Superbill does not say which appointment it belongs to. The portal finds the patient by e-mail or phone and adds it to their appointment that day (or the day or two before, if the Superbill was saved later). If there is no appointment, the Superbill still shows as a visit on its own.
The Appointments page (top menu → Appointments)
Views (the number next to each is how many are in it):
| View | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Today | Today's appointments that were not cancelled |
| Upcoming | Booked appointments after today (up to a year ahead) |
| Past | Appointments before today that were not cancelled (last 90 days) |
| Cancelled | Cancelled appointments (last 90 days and ahead) |
| Possible no-shows | Booked appointments of the last 30 days whose day ended with no check-out, no Superbill and no cancellation, plus no-shows staff confirmed |
Columns: When (date and start time) · Patient (click the name to open the patient) · Appointment (what it is, for example "Dermal Filler Consultation"; OptiMantra sends it as the Purchase Name) · Practitioner · Location · Status · Superbill (the total, when one came in). Click any column title to sort. Click a row to open the side panel.
Find searches patient, appointment, practitioner and location. All appointment types and All practitioners narrow the list (each shows when there is more than one to pick from).
Status pills: Booked · Checked out · Cancelled · No-show (staff confirmed it) · Possible no-show (nobody has confirmed it yet).
"Not matched" in the Patient column means the portal could not find this patient yet. This usually fixes itself on the next sync, once the patient's record has come in.
Possible no-shows and how to confirm them
Nobody is ever marked a no-show by the portal itself. When a booked appointment's day ends with nothing from the EMR (no check-out, no Superbill, no cancellation), it shows as Possible no-show. Tick it and choose:
- Mark no-show: the patient did not come. The status becomes No-show.
- Mark attended: the patient came, but nobody checked them out in the EMR. The status becomes Checked out and
the patient's last visit becomes that day.
- Back to booked: undoes a no-show or attended you set by mistake.
Doing several at once
Tick the boxes (the box in the header ticks every row in the view, for example all 1,600 past appointments). The bar that appears offers Mark no-show, Mark attended, Back to booked (only when a ticked row was confirmed by staff), New task (one task per ticked appointment, for its patient: "No-show follow-up" or "Appointment follow-up"), Archive, and Clear.
Archiving appointments
Archive hides the ticked appointments from every list, card and count (it asks first). Nothing is deleted, and syncs from your EMR keep them archived: they never come back by themselves. Show archived (N) (next to Find, shown once something is archived) lists only the archived ones; tick them and click Unarchive to bring them back. An archived appointment never makes a "possible no-show" or a no-show task. Appointments take very little space (about 7 MB a year for a busy clinic), so there is no need to delete them.
The side panel (click an appointment)
Patient, Appointment (its name and price, when OptiMantra sends them), date and time, practitioner, location, status (with OptiMantra's own status word), Office visit, Procedures, Lab work and Other services when OptiMantra filled them, the Superbill total and products (and how many times it was saved), and the History: every change with its date and time (booked, cancelled, checked out, Superbill saved, changed by staff).
On the patient page
The Appointments card shows the patient's next booked appointment (marked Next) and the last five. Show all lists every one. Click a row for the side panel. A patient with two memberships shows the same appointments on both.
On the dashboard
Two cards in the Care section, shown only when there is something to show: Appointments today and Possible no-shows. Click either to open that view.
Last visit, "Seen recently" and "Not seen"
The dashboard's Seen recently and Not seen cards use the patient's last visit. For OptiMantra clinics, the last visit is the day of the latest check-out or Superbill (or Mark attended). A booking does not count, because a booking is in the future. This works even when the Appointments module is off.
Questions people ask
Q: I booked a patient in OptiMantra. Why isn't it on the Appointments page yet?
A: It arrives at once but is read on the next sync: the hourly check, the morning run, or Sync now (Admin → Settings → EMR). Also check that the Booking webhook is set up with the ending ?hook=booking.
Q: Why does an appointment say "Possible no-show"?
A: Its day is over and OptiMantra sent no check-out, Superbill or cancellation. Open it and choose Mark no-show or Mark attended.
Q: Will the portal mark patients as no-shows on its own?
A: No. Staff always decide.
Q: We edited a Superbill. Did the patient get two visits?
A: No. OptiMantra re-sends the Superbill on every save; the portal updates the same visit and counts the saves.
Q: Why does an appointment show ", " under Appointment?
A: The name comes from OptiMantra's Purchase Name. Tick it on the Booking, Cancellation and Check Out webhooks; appointments booked before that have no name.
Q: Why does the Superbill not show the appointment's time or practitioner?
A: OptiMantra's Superbill webhook does not send them. The portal joins it to that patient's appointment the same day, which has them.
Q: Can we book or move appointments from the portal?
A: Not now. Booking stays in your EMR; the portal shows what the EMR sends.
Q: Can we get a task when someone does not show?
A: Yes. Settings → Tasks → Automatic tasks → No-shows (Appointments). It is off until you turn it on.
Q: Why does a patient's last visit not change when they book?
A: A booking is a future appointment. Only a check-out, a Superbill or Mark attended is a visit.
Q: We use Zenoti. How often do appointments update?
A: Within seconds, once the Zenoti webhook is set up (Settings → EMR connection → Zenoti webhooks; the setup guide's Zenoti step 6 has the clicks). Without it, and as the catch-up with it, every morning, on Sync now, and as often as you chose under Settings → EMR connection → Appointments (every hour by default, between 6 AM and 11 PM Eastern).
Q: Our Zenoti patients have no last-visit date.
A: The one-time catch-up fills it in from the last 3 months of appointments (you can change how many). See Settings → EMR connection → Appointments → Catch-up for its progress, or click Run catch-up again.