Every appointment in your calendar has an assigned status. There are five available statuses, and you can update each appointment’s status as needed. These statuses relate to your billing and your reports, so it’s important to understand what they mean and how they impact your account.
In this guide, we’ll cover:
- Changing an appointment’s status
- Understanding each appointment status type
- Billing appointments based on their status
- Tracking client attendance
Changing an appointment’s status
By default, appointments added to your calendar will have their status set to Show.
Note: See Understanding each appointment status type for a full breakdown of each status’ function.
If you need to change the status of an appointment, you can do this at any time from your calendar. To do this:
- Click the appointment
- Select the current status
- From the drop down, choose the appropriate status
- Click Done
- If you try to navigate away from the appointment flyout without clicking Done, a modal will appear to confirm your changes
Additionally, clients can cancel upcoming appointments through the Client Portal or via text reminders. Appointments canceled by a client will show Client cancelled in the calendar flyout.
Note: Clients can only cancel appointments on their end if the appointment falls within your cancelation policy window. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling > Calendar to adjust your practice’s cancelation policy. For more information, see Setting up your practice’s cancelation policy.
Understanding each appointment status type
This section covers each of the five status types:
Show
Show is the default status assigned to each appointment. Unless changed, an appointment’s status will remain set to Show after taking place.
This status indicates that the client attended and will be billed the fee associated with the appointment. If you have daily invoice creation enabled, an invoice will be created overnight and the appointment total will go towards the client’s balance.
Canceled
An appointment can be set to Canceled manually or by the client on their end. When the status is set to Canceled, the appointment won’t be treated as a billable event. This means the client won’t be billed for the appointment, nor will it appear on the client’s Billing page. However, it'll show as Canceled in their Overview page.
If an upcoming appointment is set to Canceled, this will also reflect at the top of their profile.
Canceled appointments won’t appear on statements or superbills. If a client cancels their appointment outside of your cancelation window, or if you’d like to bill them for a canceled appointment, set the status to Late canceled.
Late canceled
Appointments canceled outside of your cancelation window can be set to Late canceled. Unlike the Canceled status, the Late canceled status indicates that the client will be billed for the appointment. A Late canceled appointment will be visible as such in the client’s Billing page.
Late canceled appointments will appear on statements. However, because these aren’t considered billable to insurance, late canceled appointments won’t be included on superbills or claims.
Clinician canceled
If you need to cancel an appointment already scheduled with a client, you can set the status to Clinician canceled.
This status functions similar to Canceled, in that the client won’t be billed for the appointment and it won’t be included on superbills or claims. In addition to being differentiated in the calendar flyout, an appointment will show as Clinician canceled on the client’s Overview page.
No show
The No show status can be used in the event that a client doesn’t show up for a scheduled appointment.
A No show status is considered billable and will be visible in the client’s Billing page and on statements.
As with canceled appointments, No shows aren’t billable to insurance and won’t be included on superbills or claim forms.
Billing appointments based on their status
Because some statuses are considered billable and others aren't, it’s important to set each status appropriately so that clients are correctly billed.
With automatic invoice creation enabled, appointments set to Show, Late canceled, or No show will have invoices created for them. Once created, the invoice will display the designated appointment status.
Clients will be billed the full service fee if they’re a no show or late cancel. If you’d like to charge the client a different amount, or not charge them at all, you can make an appointment level billing change and set the rate to your desired amount.
Important: If a client’s Billing type is set to Insurance, and they’re only responsible for a portion of the total fee, they’ll become responsible for the full fee if the status is changed to No Show or Late canceled. If the appointment’s status is changed back to Show, the full appointment fee will remain the client’s responsibility, unless you perform an appointment level billing change and set the rate to the desired amount.
Tracking client attendance
The Attendance report is a helpful tool for keeping track of the various appointment statuses used in your account. To review appointment statuses using the attendance report:
- Navigate to Analytics > Reports > Attendance
-
Set a desired date range
- If no range is set, the report will default to the last 30 days
- Review the Status column
You can also use the All statuses filter to sort the report by a specific status type.
For more information on reports related to clients, emails, and appointments, see Understanding your clients and appointments reports.