Online booking ensures that your patients can schedule appointments whenever it suits them, online. Appointments sync automatically into your health record system’s calendar, avoiding double bookings and manual data entry for your team.
There are three steps to enable online booking:
Create appointment types
Configure provider availability
Customize online booking form
Create appointment types
Appointment types are the options patients see when they book online through NexHealth.
To create your appointment types follow these steps:
Navigate to the gear icon and select Settings
2. Select Appointment Types from the left side menu.
3. Click Add Appointment Type.
4. Configure the appointment type:
Name the appointment type (this is what patients see)
Toggle Show in online booking ON
Toggle Allow patient to cancel ON if you would like patients to be able to cancel their appointment from their appointment reminders
Determine the appointment duration (Note: this can be adjusted on a per-provider basis later if needed)
Add Insertion Rules (if desired) - Insertion rules are the Visit Types, Service Types, Appointment Types, and/or Procedure Codes associated with this appointment. These will write into your practice management system with the appointment when NexHealth inserts the appointment into the schedule.
Click Save.
5. Repeat for each appointment type you want to make available for patients to book online.
Configure provider availability
Availabilities are the working hours for your providers. Your providers have been synced from your health record system. Setting up provider availability configures the available blocks of time NexHealth reads from your health record system and the times available to patients to schedule appointments.
1. Navigate to the gear icon in the top right corner and select Settings.
2. Choose Availability from the left side menu.
3. Locate the provider whose schedule you'd like to configure.
4. Configure the provider:
a. Edit the provider's name (if desired) by clicking on the pencil icon. Click on the check mark to save.
b. Click on the image to upload a photo of the doctor or practice logo.
c. Use the drop-down to select a different provider type (if needed).
d. Switch the Status to Active for providers available to be scheduled online.
e. Click Edit next to Default appointment types to assign specific appointment types to this provider (the default is ALL available appointment types). Toggle on appointment types you would like patients to be able to book online.
Click on Customize appointment durations if you need to adjust the duration of a particular appointment type for a particular provider (for example, one hygienist spends 45 minutes, while another spends 60).
f. Click + ADD TIME to set the hours the provider is available to be booked online.
a. Click the Select day dropdown to choose the day. If the provider's hours are the same on multiple days, you can select multiple days.
b. Set the time by clicking on the hour and minutes. Be sure to set AM and PM correctly. If you have a standard break for lunch, we recommend creating a morning block, and then a separate afternoon block, leaving the lunch break open.
c. Click the Select operatory dropdown to choose the operatory in which the provider will see patients.
5. Click Save
6. Repeat for each different block of time you wish to set for this provider.
Note: if you have more specific hours such as every other Tuesday, or the first Saturday of the month, use the On a specific date or the Custom repeat buttons to configure those times.
Block availability
To block a full day from online booking, as for holidays or vacations, you have three options:
For most health record systems, NexHealth can most reliably read Event Blocks. For many, but not all, we can also read Holiday Blocks and lunch blocks.
1. We recommend for days you do not want to be available for online booking, you block them in your health record system using an Event Block or Blockout. NexHealth’s Synchronizer will pick up the status and match it in your online booking.
2. If NexHealth is not recognizing a block you have put on the schedule in your practice management system, you can add a block directly to the calendar in NexHealth.
To add a calendar block in NexHealth:
1. Navigate to the gear icon in NexHealth and select Calendar. (Switch to view by month to make it easier to locate.)
2. Click on the day that needs to be blocked.
3. Switch to Add unavailable slot.
4. Adjust the Starts and Ends times as needed. If the block extends for more than one day, you can change the date in the Ends time selection.
5. Click Submit to add the block.
3. If you do not see this block reflected in your online booking schedule, please contact Support. Our team can manually block dates from the back end of NexHealth.
Customize the online booking form
The online booking form captures patient information as they book online. We recommend keeping it as brief as possible, but it is possible to customize it.
1. Navigate to the gear icon in the top right and select Settings.
2. Choose Online booking form from the menu on the left.
The information in the gray area cannot be customized or removed. NexHealth uses this info to determine if the patient booking online is a new patient or an existing one.
3. If you would like to capture additional information (such as a credit card deposit, health-related information, or previous provider(s)), click on Customize Form.
4. Click +Add Field to choose the type of field you want to add.
If you have NexHealth Payments and have already set up your banking information, the Payments widget will appear. This allows you to capture a credit card on file to charge in the event of a no-show or cancellation.
5. Use the toggle to make the field hidden for existing patients and to select the location(s) that should also see this field.
Note: If you do not see the toggle to hide for existing patients, please contact our Support team. They can enable this feature for you.
6. Drag and drop fields to reorder them using the grab bars (six dots) on the left side of the field.
7. Use the Preview button at the top to review the form.
8. Click Save when complete.
Customize insurance information
NexHealth offers three options related to capturing insurance information when patients book online.
Option 1: If you have Verification, we strongly recommend using the integrated Dental Insurance Verification Form to collect insurance information. You can easily send the form via your reminders through Smart Form automation and have the patient's insurance automatically verified once they complete the form. Automatic verification is not yet available from the information provided on the online booking form, and we find that patients are more likely to not complete a booking if there are too many steps. Simplify insurance verification for you, and make online booking even easier for your patients!
Option 2: The online booking flow can give patients the option to choose their insurance carrier from a drop-down list. NexHealth uses an extensive default list, or you can add a custom list of insurance carriers.
To enable the insurance option in online booking, please contact our Support team.
To edit the default list of insurances:
Navigate to the gear icon and choose Settings.
Click on Insurance under the Scheduling options.
Select Add insurance.
4. Click on +Add insurance to enter carriers one at a time.
5. Type in the name of the insurance carrier, click +Add insurance after each one.
6. Click Save.
7. Or, choose Upload CSV to upload a list of your insurances. The CSV requires a single column with the header Name.
8. Click Upload to select the file and add it to NexHealth.
Patients' insurance information will appear in the details of the appointment in the NexHealth Activity feed and on the patient profile.
Option 3: It is possible to add fields to the online booking form to request insurance information at the time of booking. Follow the steps above to customize the online booking form to add Insurance Carrier and Member ID fields to the form.
Publish your online booking link
Once your online booking experience is configured, it is time to let patients know about it. Add the link where your patients will find it such as on your website and social media.
To enable it on your website:
1. Navigate to the gear icon in the top right and select Settings.
2. Choose Widgets from the left side menu.
3. Test the availability that you configured by clicking on any of the Book Now (b) buttons (they are all the same URL). Clicking a Book Now button takes you to the online booking page that your patients will use.
4. Use the Copy (a) button to copy the code for the color button you want to insert in your webpage. If you only need the URL, click on Book Now, and copy the URL from your browser.
5. If you want online booking links that are specific to different Locations, Providers, or Appointment Types, switch to the type of button (c), and follow the same steps as above.
NexHealth partners with Google to put your online booking link in Google Maps and search. Read more about our Reserve with Google integration.
*Note: When patients complete their booking, they end up on the appointment confirmation screen:
It is possible to redirect patients back to your website or to another page, which may be helpful, especially if you are working with a marketing firm or using Google Analytics to track conversion. Reach out to our support team with the URL you would like the online booking experience to redirect to.