Patients to make online booking

Day-to-Day Users
#1

Hi, I’m new to openEMR. Besides using the calendar and appointment booking myself as the physician I’d like to have a way by which my patients can make an online booking appointment t without having to call me. What’s the best way to open up this up to my prospect patients?

#2

@iraghib,

Please configure patient access to patient portal and ask him/her to book appointment from the patient portal.

Thanks,
Nilesh

#3

Thanks Nilesh! But this would work only for a patient that I’ve enabled access to the patient portal for him/her specifically. What I am looking for is a public for all way where they can make a booking. How is this possible?

#4

@htuck put together this wiki tutorial that will help set up new patient registration.

#5

Hi @iraghib -
Welcome to the forum, by the way!

What you are asking is specifically not possible, by design and intention. I think the OpenEMR designers’ assumption is that a practice should maintain control over access to the clinic calendar. All kinds of mayhem could occur if any random member of the public could schedule an appointment without oversight by the practice staff. From security breaches of the EMR, to simply overbooking the calendar without prior checks for conflicts with existing appointments.

A random member of the public is permitted to self- register as a patient, however. Here’s the procedure for what @Nilesh_Hake mentioned:
https://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/HOWTO:_Patient_self-registration_in_the_Native_Patient_Portal_v6.1

After the new patient is screened and registered, they have a portal account through which they may request an appointment, which is vetted and approved by staff. But in no case can anybody who is not a practice employee simply add an appointment to the calendar.

Best- Harley

#6

Once requested the appointment is added to the calendar with a pending status.

It’s a little klunky right now to then navigate and change the status of the appt since you have to note the date and time in the message that is auto generated by the portal upon the appointment request and then go back and notify the person or hope they notice the status change in their portal independently.

Ideally this would be managed in the portal dashboard as the auto generated message suggests.