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Adding flexible working hours to provider schedules
Adding flexible working hours to provider schedules

Configuring your schedule for non-regular hours

Updated over a week ago

📌 Note: You must have the Scheduling Settings permissions to set up provider schedules for your clinic. See Modifying a user's permissions.

Before you can book an appointment for a provider, the provider must have a schedule created with working hours set. You set working hours to define when a schedule is open for appointment booking and to define what appointment type(s) can be booked during those hours. If you allow patients to self-book appointments online through your CHR eBooking site, defining a provider's working hours also allows patients to choose available appointment times within those hours.

Use flex schedules for provider schedules that change daily, weekly or monthly. You can create flex hours on a one-off basis. For example, Doctor Dogood wants to see all her waitlisted patients this Saturday; you therefore create a flex schedule for Saturday.

Or you can create flex schedule templates for when the same schedule will be used over multiple dates or for other providers (such as a 'Saturday clinic' template). For more information, see Creating flexible working hour templates.

For a provider's flex hours (in person or virtual), you can specify the appointment intervals, how many patients can be booked in one interval, and which appointment types can be booked. You can also configure the schedule by location, if you have multiple locations.

If you offer different appointment types at different times in a day, you can add multiple blocks of working hours in the same day. For example, a provider offers initial consultations on Mondays from 8 am-11 am, and follow up appointments from 1 pm-5 pm.

📌 Note: When a provider is available for appointments, the time appears white on the schedule (as opposed to the standard grey background). This allows users to clearly see provider availability.

Steps

  1. From the main menu, click Settings > Scheduling > Hours.

  2. Next to the provider's name, click Edit, and then select Flex.

  3. In the <Provider's> Flexible Hours window, click + Add. The Add Flexible Hour window opens.

  4. Configure the flex working hours as follows:

Field

Description

Date

Select the date for the flex working hours.

Time

Select the time that providers begin to see patients for the specified services.

Duration

Select the duration of your flex hours.
💡 Tips:

  • Select Other to enter specific hours and minutes.

  • The time you select is the last appointment for the day. For example, if the appointment interval is 30 minutes and your day ends at 5pm, select 4:30PM.

Location

If your clinic has multiple locations, select the clinic location that applies to the working hours.

💡 Tip: The default is your primary location.

Visit Type

Select Physical for in-person visits and Virtual for virtual visits.

💡 Tip: To have both Physical and Virtual hours scheduled at the same time, create two Flexible Hours.

Colour on Schedules

Select a colour for the flex hours that will appear in provider's work schedule.

Slot

Select the number of patients (1-10) you can book in one time slot.

Intervals

Select the default length of each appointment (5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, 60 minutes).

Patients that self-book will also see the selected interval. For example, for 30 minute time intervals, patients can book appointments at 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, etc.

Stacking

This is relevant for online booking.

Select On if you want patients to only see and book the next available appointment. This prevents gaps in your schedule.

Services

Select the appointment types you offer during these working hours.

📌 Note: When you book an appointment the services offered appear in bold and the others are greyed out. You can enable a feature that hides the greyed out appointment types. See Limiting appointment type options when booking appointments. Contact the TELUS Health support team through the in-app support bubble.

5. Click Save.


The <Provider's> Flexible Hours window appears and shows the visit types (in-person or virtual), configured flex hours with the location, date and times and appointment types.

💡 Tips:

  • To modify flex hours click on the working hours. To delete working hours from here click X.

  • You can have more than one Flexible Hour applied on the same work hours.

6. Click Close to return to the Scheduling Settings page.

7. Refresh your browser to see the flex working hours in the provider's schedule.

Updated August 25, 2023

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