Purpose
This article explains the various features available in Medicus that supports you to manage your capacity for inbound Patient Requests, including opening hours, temporary pause and information banners. The article will also show you what the form looks like to patients when each of these features are used.
Opening Hours
You can manage when patients can submit requests by setting open hours. To set opening hours go to Modules > Front Door > Patient Requests > Medical or Admin Requests and select the currently set opening hours next to Form opening hours.
You can then configure the opening hours for patient requests. Firstly, choose the expected response time before a patient request which will be shown to patients when completing requests.
You can then choose from a few options to set when patients can submit medical requests:
- Same hours Monday - Friday (Not including weekends)
- Always open (Including weekends)
- Custom Schedule
Same hours Monday - Friday
If you choose Same Hours Monday - Friday, you can set the opening and close times which will be applied every weekday.
Always Open
If you choose Always Open, then the form will always be available for patients to submit requests.
Custom Schedule
If you choose Custom Schedule, you can set opening periods for each day. You can set multiple opening periods per day, for example, to close access to submit requests during lunchtime.
Bank Holidays
Medicus does not automatically close your form to patient requests on a bank holiday. You need to manually add a closure period in the Front door module for each bank holiday that your practice is closed. When a closure period is set, your form will be closed to both medical and admin requests.
Steps to add a bank holiday closure
- Go to the Scheduling & Appointments module
- Navigate to Closure Periods
- Add a new closure period for the bank holiday date
- Save your changes
Patient view of expected response time and opening times
Patients will see expected response time before and after submitting their request.
If requests are open, the patient will see the closing time for requests.
If requests are closed, the request option will be greyed out and the patient will see the opening time for requests.
Temporary pause
The temporary pause feature can help practices manage demand and reduce the risk of your practice feeling overwhelmed. You can choose the date and time you want online consultations to be available again, along with a message which will show to patients while it is paused. You can suspend either Medical or Admin requests, or both.
To temporarily pause requests, go to Modules > Front Door > Patient Requests > Medical or Admin Requests and select Temporarily pause requests.
Select a date and time that you would like to pause requests until. The pause will end automatically at the date and time chosen but you can manually remove the pause at any time.
You can also customise the message that will be shown to patients on the online consultation form when requests are paused.
Patient view of paused requests
This is how the form appears to patients when requests are paused.
Editing or removing a temporary pause
To edit or remove a temporary pause, select Edit/remove on the current pause. You can then either edit the text and Save Changes or Remove Pause.
Information Banner
You may need to let patients know that response times may be delayed or inform them of things like practice closures. You can do this using the information banner.
To do this Modules > Front Door > Patient Requests > Medical or Admin Requests and select Add Information Banner. You can add the information banner to either Medical or Admin requests, or both.
You can then add the message for patients on the information banner and then select Add Banner.
Patient view of the information banner
Patients will see the information banner after selecting which request type they are wanting to submit and after entering their personal details.
Editing or removing an information banner
To edit or remove an information banner, select Edit/remove on the current banner. You can then either edit the text and Save Changes or Delete Banner.