Set up your Online Settings

After you set up your Practice Profile for display, work your way through the left side tabs to finish setting up online bookings. Keep Activate online bookings set to 'Off' until you have completed all configuration steps to avoid incomplete online bookings.

Set up your Online Settings

  1. Select the Online Settings tab.
  2. This tab sets your practice's rules for managing bookings for new patients and appointment cancellations. Leave Activate online bookings set to 'Off' until you have completed all the steps in this article.

  3. Set Unmatched patients to the option that suits your practice requirements.
  4. NOTE  'Prevent patients from booking online if their details do not match your database' will only function correctly if the option to accept new patients is toggled off in Appointment Types and for any customised appointment rules set by providers.

    To learn more about how to match patients, see the section below on managing unmatched patients.

  5. Set Cancellations to allow or deny the ability to cancel or reschedule an appointment online. If you allow cancellations online, set the time period before the appointment during which the patient can cancel. 
  6. Set Selected appointment types that require patients to contact the clinic and cannot be cancelled online. This is useful to direct patients to call the clinic when wanting to cancel or reschedule certain appointment types such as Recalls.
  7. Set Show practice availability for to the number of weeks into the future that patients can check a provider is available.
  8. Set Patients can book an appointment online to a period before the desired appointment time during which patients can book online.
  9. For example, if set to '2 Hours', patients can book a 12:00 pm appointment at any time up to 10:00 am that day.

  10. Set Limit the number of appointments patients can book online? to 'yes' or 'no'. If you select yes, set the maximum number of appointments a patient can book in a day
  11. Create a tag or utilise the default tag [BHB], to Identify online bookings in your Bp Premier appointment book. You may customise your tag with a maximum of 8 characters, to suit your practice needs.

How do I manage unmatched patients?

Managing patients who are booking online, but who do not yet have a demographic record in Bp Premier, is much easier in version Orchid. If you are using Bp Premier version Saffron, see the paragraph on patient matching for Saffron users.

The latest version of Bp Premier (Orchid SP2) can be downloaded from the Bp Premier Resources page.

What is an unmatched patient?

An unmatched patient is a patient, usually new, who has booked an online appointment through Best Health Booking and created a Best Health Account, but Bp may not yet have a patient demographic record created in Bp Premier.

Bp Premier Orchid SP1 and later have a patient matching function from the appointment book that will display unmatched patients and allow you to create a new patient record, or merge with an existing patient record. If a visit with an unmatched patient is started from the appointment book, Bp Premier will automatically show the unmatched patient and allow you to merge or create a new patient before the visit start.

Your practice may consider introducing an 'unmatched patient check ' as an end of day or regular activity after you introduce Best Health Booking.

What is the patient matching criteria?

Premier Online Services will attempt to match a Best Health account holder with a patient record in Bp Premier using the following criteria in descending order:

  • Name: First name & Last name. If the unable to match the first name, the system will search for a preferred name if there is one recorded.
  • DOB
  • Mobile
  • Postcode

If the previous criteria match and the names are not abbreviated (Will instead of William, for example) the following examples will match, regardless of hyphens.

Note that capitalisation is ignored and is read as a letter.

Two examples of patients matching in BHB and Bp Premier despite having hyphen differences

Can I take notes for an unmatched patient?

You can start a visit, take notes, and perform any other clinical function for an unmatched patient in Bp Premier. The unmatched patient flow is designed to not obstruct normal operations for patients who are new through online booking. You can continue to update the demographics and clinical record for an unmatched patient.

However, unmatched patients will not be included in normal patient lists in Bp Premier until either the Match or Add new option is selected from the Unmatched patient details screen.

Can I tell if an appointment is for an unmatched patient?

The red silhouette icon in the appointment book in Bp Premier indicates that an appointment's patient is unmatched.

Red silhouette icon indicates an unmatched patient

How do I manage unmatched patients in Bp Premier Saffron?

What do I do next?

You can now select which of your providers can be booked online, and create an online booking profile for the doctors who opt in from the Providers tab.

Last updated 5 September 2024