Provider Manual · Part I

Scheduling operations

Run the calendar day to day: reminders, the waitlist, visit policies, the calendar itself, and what to do when something looks off.

6 sections~9 min read9 screenshots
I
Part I · continued

Scheduling operations

Run the calendar day to day: reminders, the waitlist, visit policies, the calendar itself, and what to do when something looks off.

1.7Reminders

Configure patient notifications

Two reminder policies live on this tab — Follow-up Reminders (when the physician asks a patient to schedule a follow-up visit) and Appointment Reminders (the standard upcoming-visit nudges). Both honor patient channel preferences and quiet hours.

  1. Open the Patient Notifications tab. The top of the page shows the channel readiness check — email, SMS sending number, and push.
  2. Set the Follow-up Reminder Policy. Pick the initial wait before first contact, then add one or more attempt rows: how many days after, at what time, and over which channels (Inbox, SMS, Email).
  3. Confirm follow-up booking defaults. Follow-up reminder links use the default in-office or virtual follow-up visit type from Visit Config. If the initial wait is set to 0 hours and the first attempt includes Inbox, the portal inbox request appears as soon as the request is eligible; SMS and email still respect their configured send time and quiet-hour rules.
  4. Set the Appointment Reminder Policy. Toggle reminders on, then choose whether to bypass or respect quiet hours. Add the timing offsets for each reminder (for example, 7 days, 1 day, 2 hours before).
  5. Save each policy. Saving the appointment policy automatically resyncs reminders for all upcoming appointments. Use Resync All Reminders to force a manual rebuild.
Patient Notifications tab showing channel readiness, follow-up reminder policy with three attempts, and appointment reminder policy
Channel readiness plus follow-up and appointment reminder policies.

Channels

  • Email — uses the patient's email on file when the notification purpose permits.
  • SMS — requires practice text delivery to be active and a sending number assigned.
  • Push — available when the patient has an active device registered.
  • Inbox — always available; lands in the portal inbox.

Quiet hours

  • Appointment reminders default to "always deliver" so time-sensitive nudges still go out.
  • Follow-up reminders respect quiet hours by default.
  • Patient preferences always take precedence over the policy.
Works with billing: follow-up reminders nudge patients to book the next visit, while the outstanding-balance scheduling guard in Billing setup can hold those bookings until a balance clears. Configure both so reminders and guards don't work against each other.
Addended encounters: when a signed encounter is addended and the follow-up plan changes, Hero EMR cancels the old active, unscheduled follow-up request and creates the new one. If the follow-up plan is unchanged, the existing request is preserved. Already scheduled, completed, or declined follow-ups are not changed automatically; cancel or reschedule those manually if the clinical plan changes after the patient booked.
1.8Automation

Turn on the patient waitlist

The waitlist lets patients opt into earlier openings when the calendar fills up. When a cancellation creates a slot, Hero EMR automatically reaches out to matching patients in priority order. Configure when the waitlist is offered, how short-notice cancellations are filled, and which channels are used.

  1. Open the Waitlist tab. By default the waitlist is off — toggle Patient waitlist on to enable it.
  2. Set the visibility threshold. Patients only see a waitlist option when no matching slots exist within the next N days (default 14).
  3. Configure short-notice fan-out. Decide when an opening counts as short-notice (default within 48 hours). Short-notice slots notify all matching patients at once — first to claim wins.
  4. Configure planned-opening cohorts. For longer-lead openings, set the cohort size (how many patients to notify at a time) and the wait between cohorts (default 24 hours).
  5. Pick notification channels. Email is best for planned openings; SMS for short-notice; push if patients have the app.
  6. Set the entry lifecycle. Stale entries auto-expire after N days (default 90) so the queue stays accurate.
Waitlist settings showing the master toggle, threshold, short-notice fan-out, cohort sizing, channels, and lifecycle
Waitlist automation with thresholds, cohorts, channels, and lifecycle.
1.9Cleanup

Set visit cleanup policies

Visit policies keep the calendar tidy after the fact. Two automations are available: marking still-scheduled visits as no-shows after a grace period, and cancelling clearly stale visits that were never closed out.

  1. Open the Visit Policies tab.
  2. Enable Auto No-Show if you want stale "Scheduled" visits flipped to No-Show automatically after a grace period. This also triggers any configured no-show billing fees.
  3. Enable Auto Cancel Stale Visits for data hygiene cleanup of forgotten or orphaned bookings.
  4. Click Save Policies.
Visit Automation Policies with Auto No-Show and Auto Cancel Stale Visits toggles
Auto No-Show and Auto Cancel Stale Visits keep the calendar clean.
1.10Day-to-day

Use the calendar

Once setup is complete, the calendar is the everyday surface. Open it from the top navigation. Each physician sees their own working hours (white), templates (colored blocks), time off (grey), and existing appointments (color matches the visit type).

Day, week, and month views

  1. Day view shows a single-day timeline with each appointment, status, previsit completion, signed/unsigned, and virtual flag.
  2. Week view shows the seven-day grid, useful for spotting gaps and template blocks.
  3. Month view shows a calendar heatmap colored by availability — fully booked, partially booked, or day off.

Switching physicians and locations

  1. Pick a physician from the top of the right pane. The calendar reloads with that physician's hours and bookings.
  2. Use the location filter in the left rail to hide or show specific clinic locations on the timeline.
  3. Use the patient preview pane on the right to see the selected appointment's patient details without opening the chart.
Calendar day view showing the location filter, physician picker, availability legend, and day timeline
Day view with location filter, physician picker, and availability legend.
Calendar week view showing the seven day grid
Week view for spotting gaps and template blocks.
Calendar month view colored by availability — fully booked, partially booked, or day off
Month view colored by availability.
1.11Troubleshooting

Common scheduling setup issues

Calendar shows nothing bookable

  • Confirm a location is associated with the physician on the Locations tab.
  • Confirm the day has working hours on Weekly Schedule; non-working days never appear.
  • Confirm at least one visit type is marked Active and (for online booking) Available for Online Booking.
  • Check Time Off — a blanket time-off block overrides working hours for those dates.

Patients aren't getting reminders

  • Check the channel readiness panel — SMS requires an active sending number.
  • Toggle Upcoming Appointment Reminders on; reminders are off by default.
  • If reminders should have already gone out, use Resync All Reminders to rebuild the schedule.
  • Patient-level preferences override the practice policy — confirm the patient has not opted out of the channel.

Follow-up request isn't in the portal inbox

  • Confirm the Follow-up Reminder Policy has an attempt row with Inbox selected.
  • If the initial wait is 0 hours, the inbox item appears when the request becomes eligible; SMS and email can still wait for the configured send time.
  • Confirm the physician has one active in-office follow-up default and one active virtual follow-up default in Visit Config.
  • If the encounter was addended, Hero EMR cancels and replaces only active, unscheduled follow-up requests.

Online booking isn't offering my visit type

  • The visit type must have Available for Online Booking checked.
  • The visit type's Min Notice filters out slots that are too soon.
  • The visit type's Max Schedule Ahead caps how far out it appears.
  • Only one visit type can be the Default Visit Type per physician; the default is what public landing pages pre-select.

Waitlist isn't matching anyone

  • The master Patient waitlist toggle must be on.
  • Patients only see the waitlist option in the portal when no matching slots exist within the visibility threshold (default 14 days).
  • If short-notice fan-out is not firing, check the threshold — anything outside the short-notice window goes to the cohort flow instead.
  • Stale entries auto-expire — confirm the patient still has an active entry on the Active waitlist entries list.
1.12Check-in kiosk

The in-office check-in kiosk

Most patients finish questionnaires, forms, and demographic updates from home — but some walk in with all of it still pending. The check-in kiosk turns any office iPad into a hand-off device: front-desk staff pick the patient from today’s arrivals, the visit is checked in on the spot, and the patient completes their remaining intake right there — questionnaires, consent signing with a finger-drawn signature, contact details, insurance (including camera card scan), and optionally medications and allergies. When they hand the tablet back, staff unlock it with a PIN, review what was completed, and finish.

  1. Turn it on. An administrator enables the kiosk under the toolbar … menu → Kiosk. The same dialog controls whether patients can update medications & allergies from the kiosk, whether the staff review screen shows the copay due, idle-lock and session-expiry timers, and which staff unlock methods are allowed (PIN, passkey, password).
  2. Set up the iPad once. On the office iPad, open your patient portal address followed by /kiosk in Safari, then Share → Add to Home Screen. Launching from the home-screen icon runs the kiosk full-screen with no address bar. For extra lockdown, enable iOS Guided Access and triple-click the side button when handing the device over.
  3. Sign in and work the list. Staff sign in with their work email and password (or a passkey). The kiosk shows a deliberately slim view: only today’s arrivals — time, patient, provider, and questionnaire/form readiness chips — never the full calendar. Front Desk, Medical Assistant, Nurse, and Office Manager profiles have kiosk access out of the box, and a dedicated Check-in Kiosk staff profile exists for a shared device account.
  4. Hand it to the patient. Tapping Hand to patient checks the visit in (the calendar shows Arrived immediately) and switches the device into patient mode. Behind the scenes the kiosk signs the staff account out entirely — in the patient’s hands the device holds a token that can only reach that one patient’s intake items, so no amount of tapping can reach the schedule or any staff surface.
  5. The patient works through the wizard. A step-by-step flow with no navigation: assigned questionnaires, forms & consents (signed on-screen with finger or typed signature), confirm contact details, review insurance — with the same camera card-scan used by the portal — and, if enabled, medications and allergies. If the patient walks away, the kiosk warns, then locks itself.
  6. Take it back, review, finish. When the patient taps I’m done, the screen locks to a neutral “please return this device” page showing no patient information. Staff unlock with their kiosk PIN (set from the kiosk’s Set unlock PIN button), a passkey, or their password, then see a review screen: what was completed, what’s still pending, everything the patient did on the device, and — if enabled — the payment due at check-in. Finish check-in returns the kiosk to today’s list, ready for the next patient.
The kiosk staff view titled Today's check-ins listing this morning's visits with appointment times, patient and provider names, questionnaire and form readiness chips, and a Hand to patient button on each row
The staff side of the kiosk — today’s arrivals only, with readiness chips and a Hand to patient button per visit. The full calendar never renders here.
The patient-mode welcome screen reading Let's get you checked in, explaining the steps ahead with a large Start button
Patient mode — a linear wizard with big touch targets and no way out except finishing and handing the device back.
The kiosk lock screen after the patient finished: a thank-you message asking to return the device to the front desk, with a staff unlock PIN field and passkey and password unlock options
The lock screen shows no patient information. Staff unlock with a PIN, passkey, or password — every unlock re-verifies the staff member because the device kept no staff session while the patient held it.
Check-in timing: the visit is marked Arrived at hand-off — not when the paperwork is done — so the care team sees the patient is physically present while they finish intake. Intake progress itself lives in the pre-visit checklist chips on the calendar and on the kiosk’s review screen.
Data goes live, review confirms: kiosk answers write to the chart the same way home self-service does — questionnaires score immediately, signed forms file as PDFs, demographic and insurance edits land on the patient record. The staff review step is a completeness check and audit trail, not an approval gate.

Need help? Email support@heroemr.com.