Guide to appointment types

Appointment types are placeholders for appointments you can make available in online bookings. They allow you to create appointments without necessarily adding patient details, fees, or invoices. This is an optional feature that is useful to plan, arrange, and control the appointments available in your online booking calendar.

Overview

Appointment types are flexible in their purpose and application. See the table below for some suggested examples on how to use appointment types for your practice.

Purpose	Application Example
Reserve timeslots in your calendar for specific fees	Alex blocks out 10am to 11am every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday exclusively for pre-natal consultation bookings. Patients booking for other fees cannot reserve appointments during this time.
Create group appointments for online bookings	Maria offers group therapy sessions in her online bookings where patients can book in and join a group.
Display services without listing prices	Amari allows patients to be able to book their services online but doesn’t show the price for one service because it can vary from case to case.

These are just some ways you can use appointment types, but you can use them in any way you like to suit your practice. These examples above will be explained with instructions in the sections below.

Enable appointment types

You must first enable appointment types before you can start creating and using them.

Click Settings > General.
Under the Appointment Settings section, next to Appointment Types, click the pencil icon.
Select Enabled and then click Save.

You are now ready to create new appointment types.

Create a new appointment type

Click Settings > General.
Under the Appointment Settings section, next to Appointment Types List, click View All.
In the top right, click New Appointment Type.
In the pop-up, configure the following settings:
- Level: Select if you want to make this appointment type available to the practice group, specific location/s or individual practitioner/s.
- Title: Enter the name of the appointment type.
- Allow Online Booking: Select how the service is listed in your Halaxy directory profile and how time slots are displayed to patients when booking online.
  - No: This appointment type is not available in online bookings.
  - Yes - any bookable appointment time: This appointment type is available to book online at any available timeslot.
  - Yes - only appointments matching the type: This appointment type is available to book online only for timeslots you have specifically blocked in your calendar for this appointment type. (You will need to add the appointment type to your calendar when using this option. See example on reserving timeslots in the next section.)
- Online Booking Fee (optional): Select a fee to link to this appointment type for online bookings. When a patient books this appointment type, the fee is automatically added to their appointment.
- Appointment Colour and Text Colour: Select the colours for how this appointment type appears in your Halaxy calendar.
- Duration: Enter the default duration for this appointment type. If this appointment type is available for online bookings, the duration is displayed for patients. (Note: If you set a duration lower than the minimum appointment time in your online booking preferences, the minimum appointment time applies when patients book this appointment type online. If there is no minimum appointment time set and you set Duration to less than 10 minutes, the duration will be assumed to be 10 minutes when patients book this appointment type online.)
- Max Patients (optional): Set how many patients can book a single appointment using into this appointment type. (Use this option for group bookings.)
- Default survey template: Select the survey to automatically send to patients when they complete an online booking for this appointment type. Related article: Assign a survey to an appointment type
- Default Appointment Location: Select the default location for this appointment type. (Example: If you exclusively do video consultations, select Halaxy Telehealth, or Online consultation if you use other telehealth software.)
- Online booking intake form: Select which intake form to automatically send to patients after completing an online booking for this appointment type. Related article: Assign a patient intake form to an appointment type
- Notes (optional): Add additional information to display under the appointment type name in the online bookings page.
- Active (checkbox): Tick the checkbox to enable the appointment type. If this checkbox is unticked, the appointment type cannot be used in your practice and will not available to patients.
Click Save.

You can now select an appointment type when creating appointments in the calendar.

Use an appointment type

Here are some of the common handy ways to apply appointment types.

Reserve timeslots in your calendar for specific fees
1. Create a new appointment type.
2. In the new appointment type, configure your settings as needed, including:
  - Allow Online Booking: Select Yes – only appointments matching the type.
  - Online Booking Fee: Select the fee you want to reserve timeslots for.
3. Click Save.
4. To start reserving timeslots, go to the calendar and click the timeslot on the first day you want to take bookings for this fee.
5. In the panel, for Appointment Type, select the new appointment type you created. You do not have to add a patient name or fee.
6. Click Repeat Appointment and enter specifications for when you want to reserve this same timeslot for this fee.
7. Click Save. You have now blocked out appointment timeslots for this fee, which is now available for patients to book.
  
  When your patients select this service in your online bookings page, they only see the reserved timeslots for it.
  
  In the same manner, patients who select other services in your online bookings page are not able to book at the reserved timeslots.
Create group appointments for online bookings
1. Create a new appointment type.
2. In the new appointment type, configure your settings as needed, including:
  - Allow Online Booking: Select Yes – any bookable appointment time.
  - Online Booking Fee (optional): Select the fee to link to this appointment type. This displays the fee’s price for the appointment type in your online bookings page.
  - Max Patients: Enter the maximum number of patients who can join a group appointment (must be higher than 1).
3. Click Save. Your patients can now book in and join group sessions in your online bookings page. Each booked patient automatically has their own invoice.
Display services without listing prices

By default, displaying fees in your service list also lists their prices. If you want to offer a service without listing a price, you can create an appointment type instead.
1. Create an appointment type for the service you want to list without a price. For Online Booking Fee, select the fee to link to this appointment type. Then click Save.
2. Click Finances > Fees and select the fee linked to your newly created appointment type.
3. Under the Pricing section, click the pencil icon.
4. In the pop-up, for Visibility, select Hidden and click Save. In the main screen, click Save Fee.
5. When patients visit your booking page, they can still see the appointment type, but the price is no longer listed.