You may have noticed when logging out of Genie you receive a prompt asking if you would like to clear out old appointments. If you have ever wondered what this prompt is, then continue reading to find out why this prompt appears and what happens when you click OK and Cancel. This article also covers how you can ensure this feature is setup to only clear out old appointments you are comfortable removing from the Appointment Book.
Before you begin
It's a good idea to decide on the amount of days you would like to keep old appointments in your Appointment Book. Once you have confirmed this, you can then proceed with checking and adjusting the relevant settings to fit your practice needs.
Note: This prompt will only appear for the first user to logout of Genie for the day. Every subsequent user who logs out for the rest of the day will not be prompted if they would like to clear old appointments.
Please note: Any patient appointments deleted using this method are not able to be restored via Appts > Deleted Appointments. These appointments will also not appear on any historical appointment reporting you perform in future, which may lead to inaccurate reporting for older appointments.
Checking Appointment Preferences
The Appointment Preferences are where you can adjust the settings responsible for deleting patient and non-patient appointments. From your Appointment Book, Navigate to Appts > Appt Preferences. In the Main tab, on the right hand side you will see two settings titled 'Delete patient appointments after x days' and 'Delete non-patient appointments after x days'.
If you do not want any appointments deleted, it is recommended that you have both options set to 9999 days, and click the Save button.
Note: These Appointment Preferences are specific to each practice record you have set up under File > Practice Preferences. If you have multiple practice records in this window, you will need to login under each of these practices, and ensure the Appointment Preferences are matching across all practices to avoid any confusion and accidental deletion of appointments.
What gets cleared when clicking OK
In addition to deleting old appointments that exceed the number of days specified in the Appointment Preferences, there are some other areas Genie will clear out when clicking OK to the prompt to clear out old appointments:
- Deleted appointments more than two weeks old are deleted
- iCal/Outlook synchronisation records for appointments and tasks more than seven days old are deleted
- iCal/Outlook synchronisation records for appointments and tasks which have been deleted for more than one month are deleted
- Banking batches more than 300 batches old are deleted from the Daily Banking Report. Note: This will not delete any payments, and you will still be able to see all the banking batches in your database in the Banking Summary report under File > Maintenance and Reports > Practice Analysis.
- Current referrals which have now expired are marked as such (other than this, a patient's referrals are only updated when opening the demographics window)
- Pathology and Radiology requests more than 12 months old are deleted.
What gets cleared when clicking Cancel
Even if you click Cancel to the prompt, there are some things that are still cleared out when Genie closes:
- Banking records more than 300 bank batches old are deleted
- Current referrals which have now expired are marked as such (other than this, a patient's referrals are only updated when opening the demographics window)
- Path/Rad requests more than 12 months old are deleted
- One-time scripts more than 30 days old are deleted
- Appointments still within the number of days specified in the Appointment Preferences
- Deleted appointments marked as Cancelled by patient
- Deleted appointments marked as Did Not Arrive