In your Appointment Book, there area number of statuses that can be used to track a patient’s time in the practice, from arrival to invoicing. Some of these statuses, when applied, can trigger different windows to open rather than just the Demographics window.
Before you begin
It is important to have a consistent workflow and solid understanding of the Appointment Book to get the most out of these patient statuses. For more information on this area of Genie, please refer to our article on the Appointment Book Overview.
If you are ever unsure what a status colour refers to, you can review this by selecting the Status drop-down at the top of your Appointment Book. This menu can also be used to manually set a status as necessary.
When the patient is added to the Waiting Room by clicking on the coffee cup icon 
, the status is automatically changed to the 'In Waiting Room' status.
Users on a Windows computer can also choose to receive a sound alert when a patient is placed in the waiting room. This can be configured from the computer requiring the alert, while logged in as this user, by navigating to File > User Preferences > General tab. In the top right of the window, the user can locate the Play sound when a patient arrives setting and choose the desired tone from the drop-down list.
The In Waiting Room status can also track the amount of time a patient has been waiting to see the doctor, based on when the Clinical Window is opened. This functionality can be configured in Appts > Appt Preferences by specifying an option for the Calculate Waiting Times From drop-down located at the bottom left, as shown in the below image.
The options available for calculating waiting times are explained below.
- Never: this will never record the length of time a patient waits for their appointment
- Appointment Time: this will calculate a patient's wait time based on the time of their appointment
- Arrival Time: this will calculate a patient's wait time based on when they were set to the In Waiting Room status
The use of the In Waiting Room status will also change the behaviour of double clicking on an appointment. Double clicking appointments that are set as In Waiting Room will open the Clinical Window, rather the the Demographics window.
The In Waiting Room status will automatically end and stop calculating wait times when the Clinical Window opens, changing the status to In With Doctor. If a patient is incorrectly entered to the waiting room, this can be resolved by clicking the coffee cup icon again, which will prompt you with Remove this patient from the Waiting Room?, to which you may select OK. Alternatively, you can manually change the status from the Status drop-down at the top of the appointment book.
The Ready To Invoice status is automatically applied when a practitioner selects Save to close from the Clinical Window.
Note: In Genie v9.3.4 and below, any user (including receptionists) that Save out of a Clinical Window will trigger the Ready To Invoice status.
Selecting Save to close the Clinical Window may also trigger a window for the doctor to specify the item numbers they wish to charge the patient. The Items To Charge window is user specific, but can be configured by any user, unlike the arrival tone mentioned above. The Items to Charge window is configured in File > All User Preferences. In this window, double click on a username and select the General tab. In this window, you may enter or remove a value from the Default Item No field, then select Save to close. For more information, please see the Items to Charge page.
The use of the Ready To Invoice status will also change the behaviour of double clicking on an appointment. Double clicking appointments that are set as Ready To Invoice will open a new invoice, rather the the Demographics window. Once invoiced from the appointment book, the status will change to Invoiced automatically.
The Waiting For Cancellation status can be set on a patient's future-dated appointments by selecting the status from the Status drop-down list. When an appointment with an earlier date is deleted or cancelled, the user will receive a prompt advising of any patients waiting for an earlier appointment with this provider. This function can be turned on through Appts > Appt Preferences by ticking the option for Check for Cancellations When Deleting.
Once enabled, users can expect to see the below window after cancelling or deleting an appointment.
The Waiting For Cancellation window is provider specific, and will suggest patients who are added to the list based on their status. This allows you to select a patient, contact them to confirm if they would like an earlier appointment, then add them into the Appointment Book. You also have the option for Keep This Appointment Also to retain the future dated appointment should it be required.
The Waiting For Cancellation window can be accessed at any time via Appts > Waiting For Cancellation.
Within Genie, there are eight default statuses; as these have specific functions assigned they cannot be deleted or renamed. The colour of the text can be changed, if necessary.
In order to change the text colour, add a new status, and/or delete user-added statuses, select the Status drop-down at the top of your Appointment Book, then select Modify. In this window, you can use the Add and Delete buttons as required.
The name of a status cannot be changed for the default statuses or user-added statuses. In the Modify Appointment Status window, a status can be selected on the left, and clicking the words in the middle of the box will allow you to change the text colour. After making your changes, you can select OK to close the window.
