Cancelling and rescheduling appointments manually

You can cancel or reschedule one or more patients' appointments in the Appointment Book at any time before the consultation starts.

In Communicare V21.1 and later, you can enable patients to reply to an SMS appointment reminder. Patient replies are recorded in the Appointment Book and Service Recording windows.

In the Appointment Book, the abbreviated status of the SMS replies for all patients are recorded in the timeslot for each appointment. When you select a timeslot, the status of the SMS reply for that patient is displayed on the SMS appointment reminder tab.
Example timeslot in the Appointment Book with a confirmed appointment

In the Service Recording window, the status of the SMS replies for all patients with an appointment are displayed in the SMS Status column. When you select a patient, the status of the SMS reply for that patient is displayed on the SMS appointment reminder tab.

Table 1. SMS reply statuses
Appointment Book Service Recording SMS appointment reminder tab Description Action
[S] Sent Appointment Reminder SMS Sent An SMS appointment reminder for this appointment has been sent to the patient, but no reply has been received. Depending on your processes, follow up with the patient or no action is required.
[C] Confirmed Appointment Confirmation Received An SMS appointment reminder for this appointment has been sent to the patient, and the patient has replied with Y or Yes and confirmed the appointment. No action is required.
[R] Rejected Appointment Rejection Received An SMS appointment reminder for this appointment has been sent to the patient, and the patient has replied with N or No and rejected the appointment. Depending on your processes, either reschedule the appointment with or without patient input, or cancel the appointment.
Note: Only the first response is received by Communicare. For example, if a patient replies N to an SMS reminder and then changes their mind and responds Y, the second response is ignored.
The patient's reply is also recorded in their clinical record. To display the reply, on the Detail tab, select the SMS Message clinical item. Details of the SMS are displayed in the Qualifier pane:
  • SMS Phone Number
  • SMS Send Status - when the patient has replied, displays Replied (reply from patient), for example, Replied (Yes)
Tip: To view any previous statuses or replies, double-click SMS Send Status.

To reschedule an appointment, you can either:

  • Drag an appointment to a new timeslot, which cancels the original appointment
  • Add a new appointment, then cancel the first appointment
  • Queue the original appointment for rescheduling then add the rescheduled appointment. This is the best option if you want to cancel multiple appointments.
To cancel appointments:
  1. In the Appointment Book, select the appointment you want to cancel.
    To select multiple appointments, press SHIFT + click.
  2. Click Cancel buttonCancel or press F2.
  3. In the Appointment Cancellation window, from the Reason list, select the reason for cancellation.
    If you select Queue for rescheduling, the patient is added to the reschedule queue. If you selected multiple patients, this is the only option available.
  4. In the Comment field, add any other information. For example, Provider sick.
  5. Click Select iconOK.
If you cancelled multiple appointments for rescheduling, a cancellation report is displayed. Print this out and use it to help ensure you reschedule all patients. The report cannot be printed later.
If you queued the patients for rescheduling, you can now reschedule the appointments.