When creating appointments, multiple service codes from the client’s authorization can be added to the appointment, ensuring all authorized services and hours are booked and billed correctly.

Adding multiple service codes to a single appointment allows users to bill for each code and their allotted times at different rates. For example, if required to bill for the first 30 minutes under one code while any additional time on that date of service is to be billed with a different code, both codes can be added to the appointment.

When scheduling a new appointment, under the “Authorizations & Billing” section, add each individual service code to the appointment and adjust the code time length to match the appointment length. Codes can be reordered as necessary by dragging the code through the left-hand side icon.

If an appointment has already been converted to a timesheet using only one service code, it can also be edited to add additional codes.

Click here to learn how to edit a timesheet.

The following permission can be granted in the  Permissions module, under the Scheduling section, for employees to manage their availability without being able to create or edit appointments in their schedule:

1. Settings > Manage Own Availability
   • Access manage their own availability

Click here to learn how to create a permission group to grant employees permission to manage their availability.

Click here to learn how to review and edit an employee’s permissions.

Click here to learn how to edit the permissions of a group.

Appointment Types allow organizations to decrease scheduling time by standardizing appointments with specific titles and lengths. Appointment types are created in the My Profile section of your profile, under the “Settings” tab, located in the Dashboard module.

• Employees with permission to manage Appointment Types (Settings > Manage Employee Appointment Types) can create Appointment Types to be used by other employees in the organization.
• Employees with permission to manage their own Appointment Types (Settings > Manage Own Appointment Types) can create their own list of Appointment Types.

After the Appointment Types are created, in order for other employees to use them to schedule appointments, the Appointment Types must be shared with these other employees in the Settings section of the  Scheduling module.

Click here to learn how to create appointment types.

There are three calendar views available in the Scheduling module to help manage the calendar, employees’ calendars, and appointments:

1. View My Calendar: there are 5 different views to select when accessing the calendar view
   • Day View: view all appointments for a specific day, add single or recurring appointments to any time within the day, and update an appointment’s time by dragging and dropping the scheduled appointment to a different time.
     • Billable appointments are identified in this view by a white lightning bolt icon, which can be clicked to be redirected to convert the appointment to a timesheet. 
     • Converted appointments are identified with a white lightning bolt in a green circle . 
   • Week View: the default calendar view and shows all appointments for the dates in the selected week. Add single or recurring appointments to any day and time in the week, and drag and drop existing appointments to a different date, to change an appointment date and time. 
     • Billable appointments are identified in this view by a white lightning bolt icon, which can be clicked to be redirected to convert the appointment to a timesheet. 
     • Converted appointments are identified with a white lightning bolt in a green circle . 
   • Month View: view all appointments scheduled for the month. Select a day to schedule a new appointment and edit existing appointments by clicking the appointment box. 
     • Converted appointments are identified by a checkmark icon
     • Unconverted appointments are identified by a circle icon 
   • List View: view all appointments scheduled per day and per hour for the selected week. Add appointments by clicking in the space representing the desired time, and edit existing appointments by clicking the appointment box. 
     • Converted appointments are identified by a checkmark icon. 
   • Planner View: view the appointments scheduled per day for the selected week. Add employees’ calendars and view their own lines with appointments, and add single or recurring appointments to any day and time. 
     • Converted appointments are identified by a checkmark icon. 
2. View Day Planner: a more in-depth view of employees’ calendars and is designed for you to compare multiple calendars and review scheduled appointments by the hour of the selected date, and search for availability. Once employees’ calendars are added in this view, click to add new appointments, drag and drop appointments from different employee calendars, and drag and adjust the length of an appointment
   • Appointments that are in conflict with authorizations are identified bythe warning icon. 
   • Appointments hidden from the client view in the Client Portal are identified by a strikethrough icon.
3. View As Grid: a grid with all scheduled appointment details. This is a great view to audit scheduled appointments, identify unconverted appointments by a circle icon, identify authorized or unauthorized appointments, and view all cancelled and deleted appointments for a given date range, in a table grid view. 
   • Appointments hidden from the client view in the Client Portal will be identified by a strikethrough eye icon included in the third column of the schedule grid.

Please note:

• Appointments hidden from the client view in the Client Portal will be identified by a strikethrough icon.
• Lightning bolt icons will not be visible for appointments created between employees.
• After clicking checks on converted appointments, users with the (Timesheets > Access) permission enabled will be directed to the “Timesheets” screen, filtered by the associated appointment ID, date, and provider.

When recurring appointments are edited, the remaining appointments in the series can be changed, depending on what options are selected when saving.

After editing an appointment and clicking Update Appointment, the “Save Changes” pop-up has the following options:

• Only this event: other events in the same series will remain the same.
• Save: save this change for this and all following events.
• Cancel: return to the edit page without saving.

Please note, selecting Save will change all future appointments in the series.

The following permissions can be granted in the Permissions module, under the Scheduling section, for employees to create, edit, cancel, or delete appointments from their schedule.

1. Appointments > Allow Cancelling One-Off
   • Ability to cancel a single appointment. Users with this permission can cancel appointments that are no longer occurring
2. Appointments > Allow Cancelling Recurring
   • Ability to cancel an entire series of a recurring appointment
3. Appointments > Allow Deleting One-Off
   • Ability to delete a single appointment. Users with this permission can cancel an appointment that was incorrectly added to their schedule
4. Appointments > Allow Deleting Recurring
   • Ability to delete entire series of a recurring appointment. Users with this permission can cancel a series of recurring appointments incorrectly added to their schedule
5. Settings > Manage Own Schedule
   • Access to manage their own schedule

Click here to learn how to create a permission group to grant employees any of the above permissions.

Click here to learn how to review and edit an employee’s permissions.

Click here to learn how to edit the permissions of a group.

Click here to learn more about the Scheduling module’s permissions.

Organizations can control when edits can be made to their schedule, and prevent billing or payroll issues, by defining the date until when employees can make edits to their appointments. This setting can only be configured by the organization’s account and users with the permission to bypass lock settings, (Appointments > Bypass Lock Settings), can modify appointments before the established lock date.

To utilize this feature, select the date, which, on or prior to this date disables employees’ abilities to convert or make changes to their appointments. For instance, if the current date is 7/06, and payroll is being run for the previous week, the schedule lock date should be set before 7/06, such as 7/05. If 7/06 needs to be set, users need to run payroll at the end of the day, because appointments on or before 7/06 will not be able to be converted or edited.

• Please note:
  • Setting future dates will prevent employees from converting present appointments until that date has passed.
  • This also assumes that the service codes do not have early restriction enabled and the employee does not have the permission to bypass lock settings.

Click here to learn how to set up a Schedule Lock Date.

When creating a new appointment or viewing an existing appointment in the  Scheduling module, check for any authorization issues, as well as any overlapping date/time scheduling issues, with the Schedule Validation feature. The Schedule Validation feature allows users to identify authorization issues via a warning icon in the appointment in their calendar, and provides additional details pertaining to the issues under each service code in the “Appointment Details” page.

The Schedule Validation toggle can be found at the bottom of the “Appointment Details” page. Organization accounts can configure one of three available settings for Schedule Validation, to either:

• Enforce and always enable Schedule Validation by default for all users’ appointments.
• Disable it by default and allow users to enable it, if needed.
• Enable it by default, but allow users to disable it, if needed.

Creating an appointment with Schedule Validation disabled, means CentralReach will not look for any errors with that appointment. However, once the appointment is created, users can return to the specific event and enable Schedule Validation to identify any issues with the service codes, or with the appointment time and date. If any issues are identified when Schedule Validation is enabled, the user can still create or save changes to the appointment, by clicking on the authorization acknowledgment checkbox I accept the authorization issues outlined above, to accept the issues. Issues related to the appointment time and date overlapping with other scheduled appointments will display a warning on the bottom of the appointment details page.

Please note, if an appointment has Schedule Validation disabled, the warning icon will still be shown for all appointments with authorization issues, if you have Additional Settings set up to Show Authorization Warnings Calendar in the  Scheduling module.

If the authorization allows over-billing, users can still convert appointments with an authorization issue. If the authorization does not allow over-billing, users cannot convert an appointment with an authorization issue.

Click here to learn how to set up Schedule Validation.

When scheduling an appointment and utilizing the Schedule Validation feature, if there are authorization issues related to the appointment length, approved time, units, date, or provider availability, CentralReach will display three types of warnings:

• GLOBAL: errors with the authorization as a whole. 
• GROUP: errors with the service code group. 
• LINE-LEVEL: errors with the authorization settings in the service code.

If Schedule Validation is disabled, the warnings below will not display during the appointment scheduling process, but will be shown if issues persist when converting the appointment to a timesheet.

• GROUP: This appointment exceeds the X total authorized hours by Y
  This error message appears when the number of hours on the appointment exceeds the number of hours allotted in the authorization. Click the  next to the warning to view how many hours have been authorized, how many have been scheduled, and how many hours are in excess to the amount authorized.
  
  
• GROUP: This appointment exceeds the 2 weekly/monthly authorized hours/units on X occasions
  This warning appears when the number of hours or units on the appointment exceeds the number of hours or units in the authorization frequency and amounts. Click the  next to the error message to view how many hours or units have been authorized to use per frequency, how many have been scheduled, and how many are in excess to the amount authorized.
  
  
  • To resolve the error: 
    • Edit the appointment recurrence or length to match the authorization
    • Or, edit the authorization to allow more hours or units, by clicking the authorization under “Auth/Code.”
      
      
  • To override this authorization issue, click the checkbox  next to I accept the authorization issues outlined above. 
• GLOBAL/GROUP: This series exceeds the mm/dd/yyyy authorized end date by X days. Shorten the series to remove this warning.
  If the appointment is scheduled with an expired authorization, or the appointment recurring series end date is after the authorization end date, you will receive this error message. To avoid this error, and ensure appointments and authorizations are aligned, CentralReach recommends scheduling recurring appointment series based on the authorization date range, so the start date and end date of the appointment series are equal to the start date and end date of the corresponding authorization.
  
  
  • To override this authorization issue, click the checkbox  next to I accept the authorization issues outlined above. 
• LINE: This series exceeds the X total authorized hours by Y
  This warning appears when the number of hours on the appointment exceeds the number of authorized hours in the service code. Click the  next to the warning to view how many hours have been authorized, how many have been scheduled, and how many hours are in excess to the amount authorized.
  
  
• This appointment overlaps the following appointment on your schedule:
  You will receive this warning when trying to book an appointment at a date and time that overlaps with other appointments in the provider’s schedule. To resolve this error, ensure you are booking the appointment during an open time and date on the provider and client’s calendar.
  
  
  • To override this error, click the checkbox  next to I accept the overlap issue outlined above. Overlapping appointments can then be viewed in the Scheduling module.

Currently, there are no reports that display the number of warning messages populated to employees, or how many employees have scheduled appointments without enough authorized hours. However, authorization errors can be viewed in the authorization details.

To view the authorization details, and ensure authorizations are up to date, navigate to the  Billing module and select Authorization. From this screen, you can view:

• Authorized: the number of authorized hours and units
• Pending: the number of authorized hours or units currently scheduled 
• Worked: the number of completed authorized hours or units
• Remaining: the number of hours or units remaining in the authorization
• Utilization: the total percentage of authorized hours or unit being utilized

Click here to learn how to download the Authorizations export report.

Download this comprehensive guideline with recommended workflows on how to book clients’ appointments and streamline your scheduling processes, so you can effectively manage schedules, billing, claims, and payroll in CentralReach.

• Download Scheduling Playbook

When scheduling an appointment in the  Scheduling module, you are creating a new event. An Event is the actual appointment within a possible course of events, such as recurring appointments. A Segment is the billing entry within the event. For example, a 0364T and 0365T in an appointment would have two segments (two codes that become a billing entry). If they are all part of a recurring series, they would be under the same course ID.

When converting an appointment to a timesheet and the “Service Address” is not set in the service code first, then that field on the timesheet will populate the address from either:

• The client’s “Basics” section of their Profile
  • Please note, only one address can be added. If a client has more than one address in their Profile, users can add a client’s address to the provider’s office locations and name it after the client. Be sure to check the hide address from public view checkbox, so other users cannot view the client’s address.
• The provider’s office locations

If the client and provider both do not have an address set, the timesheet will only provide the option of the organization’s office locations.

If a client or employee’s calendar location, other than the client’s mailing address or employee’s office location, needs to be selected, it will have to be set on the appointment details first so that it can pull into the timesheet as a saved address. Please note, it will not be an option once the employee is in the process of converting.

Click here to learn how to create a new office location.

If authorized service codes cannot be added when trying to schedule a client’s appointment, it is due to the following reasons:

1. The Enforce Rate is not set up on the Service Code: Navigate to the  Billing module to review and edit the service code, and check the Enforce Rate to ensure all custom rates are properly set up for all employees.
2. Authorization has expired or has not started: Navigate to the client’s Dashboard and review the “Authorizations” widget to view all of their active authorizations. If the authorization periods have expired, the authorization service codes will be unavailable to schedule a client appointment. If the date of service on the appointment is outside of the authorization date range the authorization will not display as an option to select. 
3. Locked to Provider: The authorization has been locked to a specific provider and an appointment is trying to be scheduled with another provider. To enable more than one provider to be scheduled for appointments with the client, edit the authorization and remove the locked provider.
   
4. Code Requires Authorization: The code the appointment is being scheduled with requires an authorization that is not currently added to the client’s list of authorization codes. As such, once the code is added to the client’s authorization files, along with other authorization codes, the code should appear in the client’s authorization codes on the appointment page.
5. Employee is not Connected to the Code(s): when connecting employees to service codes, ensure the employee is connected to the right code ID that is in the authorization. Then, set up the employee with a custom rate for the code(s) and schedule an appointment.

To convert appointments, users must have the (Access) permission enabled. Please note, the (Access) permission is different from the (Billing > Access) permission. If this permission is disabled, there will be an error message stating users do not have permission to convert appointments and need to contact their organization account for further assistance.

When new employees, providers, and clients are added to CentralReach, connections must be established to schedule appointments between them.

If contact connections are not yet made when attempting to schedule an appointment for the new employee or client, you will not find them in the Primary Provider, Appointment with or Additional Participants fields in the Appointment Details page. Additionally, if a user is scheduling appointments on behalf of other employees, the employee’s calendars must be connected, as well.

Click here to learn how to connect clients to providers.
Click here to learn how to connect clients to employees.
Click here to learn how to connect employees.

An appointment will be cancelled, if:

• It is manually cancelled.
• The provider on the appointment is changed.

Please note, cancelled appointments cannot be deleted.

An appointment will be deleted, if:

• It is manually deleted.
• The end date of a recurring series is changed to an earlier date.
  • Please note, all appointments scheduled after the new end date will be deleted.
• It is dragged to another date in “View My Calendar.” This happens for stand alone appointments and an appointment that is part of a recurring series.
• The date is changed to a stand alone appointment for another date in the appointment details.