In this guide, you'll find detailed information about managing appointments in SimplePractice. We'll cover:

• Scheduling a new client appointment
• Creating a recurring appointment series
• Editing an appointment
• Deleting an appointment
• Creating an Other appointment
• Creating an all day event
• Reflecting client information changes on future appointments

Note: To learn how to adjust your calendar view or print your schedule, see: Customizing the calendar view and printing your schedule.

Scheduling a new client appointment

To create a new appointment:

• Navigate to the Calendar homepage.
• Click + Create > Create Appointment.
  • You can also click anywhere on the calendar.

• On the New Appointment flyout, select an existing client from the dropdown menu or click + New Client to create a new client.
• Set the date, time, and duration of the appointment.
  • You also have the option to create an All day appointment by checking this box. Keep in mind that All day appointments will affect your Availability for online appointment requests for that day.
• If your practice has multiple clinicians, select a Clinician from the dropdown menu.
  • For existing clients, this will default to the primary clinician assigned to that client. 
• Select a Location from the dropdown menu if you have multiple practice locations.
  • If this is a Telehealth appointment, select the Telehealth: Video Office location. 
• To create a recurring appointment series, select the checkbox for Repeat.
• Update the service code from the Services dropdown menu and adjust the Rate as needed.
• Click Done.

Note: The clinician assigned to the appointment will also receive payment for this appointment.

Creating a recurring appointment series

You can create a recurring appointment series that repeats on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. To do this:

• Create a new appointment
• Check the box for Repeat
• Choose how often the appointment repeats, when it repeats, and when the recurring series will end
  • A series can end after a certain number of appointments occur, or on a certain date

• Click Done

Note: You can create a recurring appointment series with up to 300 appointments.

Editing an appointment

To edit existing appointments:

• Navigate to Calendar homepage
• Click the appointment to view the details
• Edit as needed
• Click Done

If the appointment is part of a recurring series, you’ll be asked if your changes should be applied to just the one appointment or to all appointments in the series.

Note: If you edit the fee for an appointment that already has an invoice attached to it, your client's balance will be updated to reflect this. You can manually create a new invoice for this appointment, or a fee adjustment invoice will be generated automatically if you have automatic invoicing turned on. 

If the appointment is locked, you won’t be able to edit the appointment details. An appointment is considered locked if there's an invoice, superbill, progress note, and/or psychotherapy note attached to it. If needed, you can unlock an appointment to make edits, then sign and lock it once more.

Deleting an appointment

To delete an appointment:

• Navigate to Calendar homepage
• Select the appointment
• Click the trash can icon

• Select Delete Appointment to confirm

If an appointment is locked, you'll be prompted to first delete any attached document(s) before you can delete the appointment. An appointment is considered locked if there's a progress note, psychotherapy note, invoice, and/or superbill attached to it. 

Note: There isn't a way to delete appointments for multiple clients at once. Each appointment will need to be canceled individually from the appointment flyout. A best practice we've seen clinicians follow is to send a Secure Message communicating these appointment cancellations with your clients.

Creating an Other appointment

Creating an Other appointment is a great way to block off time on your calendar that isn't associated with a specific client or related to billing, such as a meeting with a colleague or a dentist appointment. 

Other appointments are displayed as gray events to clearly differentiate them from your client appointments. An Other appointment will prevent that time slot from appearing as available for online appointment requests if you have this feature enabled.

To create an Other appointment:

• Navigate to your Calendar homepage
• Click + Create > Create Appointment
• Select the Other appointment type

• Edit the title, date, time, duration, and location of the appointment as necessary
• Click Done

Setting up recurring Other appointments

If you know you’ll be having a regular meeting each week and want to prevent clients from scheduling appointments at that time, you can create a recurring Other appointment series. To do this:

• Navigate to your Calendar
• Click the Other appointment
• Check the box for Repeat

• Select how often the appointment repeats, when it repeats, and an end date for the recurring series
• Click Done

Note: If you’re part of a group practice, Other appointments will be visible to all team members in your SimplePractice account. Visibility to these appointments aren’t restricted by any access level. To learn more, see: Team member roles and access levels.

Creating an all day event

If you're planning on being out of the office for an entire day or multiple days, you can create an all day Other appointment. To do this:

• Navigate to your Calendar homepage
• Click + Create > Create Appointment
• Select the Other appointment type
• Check the box next to All day 

• Enter the details of the event, including the title, date(s), clinician, and location
  • You can also set it to repeat if you'd like
• Click Done

The all day Other appointment will appear at the top of the calendar as a gray bar.

Note: All day events will make you unavailable for online appointment requests for the entire duration of the event.

Reflecting client information changes on future appointments

If a client's billing or insurance information changes, updating the information in the client's Billing and Insurance tab will not automatically update the client's future appointments. To have the updated information reflect for future appointments, delete all future appointments, including recurring appointments, and recreate them on the calendar.

Note: See Appointment level billing changes to learn how to make billing-related changes for past client appointments.