Patient Self-Scheduling

When patient self-scheduling is enabled, patients can book visits directly from their portal, reducing phone calls and giving patients more control over their care.

Patient self-scheduling allows enrolled patients to browse available time slots and book visits without calling your practice. You control which time slots are available for self-scheduling, which require staff approval, and how the patient experience works.

This page covers how to enable and configure self-scheduling, what the patient experience looks like, and how to manage bookings that come in through the portal. Self-scheduling works alongside staff-initiated booking. Enabling it does not change how your team schedules visits.

Many DPC practices find that self-scheduling reduces administrative phone time while maintaining full control over their calendar.

Enable Self-Scheduling

Self-scheduling is controlled at the time slot level, not as a single practice-wide switch. Each available time slot on a provider’s calendar has a booking mode that determines how patients interact with it.

There are two booking modes:

• Self-schedule: patients book directly and the visit is confirmed immediately
• Request and approval: patients submit a visit request that staff must review before the visit is confirmed

Setting the Booking Mode

The booking mode can be set in two places:

1. Organization default: your organization has a default booking mode that applies to all time slots unless overridden. Contact your administrator to review this setting.
2. Per time slot: individual time slots can override the organization default. When setting up schedule template slots, select the desired booking mode for each block.

To enable self-scheduling for a specific time block:

1. Navigate to Schedule → Schedule Templates.
2. Open the provider’s template.
3. Select the time slot you want to enable for self-scheduling (or add a new one).
4. Set the booking mode to Self-Schedule (patients book directly).
5. Select Save.

Gradual Rollout

You can enable self-scheduling for some time blocks while keeping others on request-and-approval. For example, allow self-scheduling for afternoon follow-up slots while requiring staff approval for morning procedure slots.

Configure Booking Rules

Visit Type Restrictions

Each time slot can restrict which visit types are available for booking. When a patient self-schedules, they only see visit types that the time slot allows.

To restrict visit types for a self-scheduling slot:

1. Open the schedule template slot.
2. Set the Allowed visit types to the types patients should be able to book (for example, Follow Up and Sick Visit only).
3. Select Save.

If allowed visit types is left empty, patients can select any visit type when self-scheduling into that slot.

Patient Eligibility

Only patients with an active membership who are enrolled at your practice can self-schedule. Self-scheduling is available through the patient portal, which requires the patient to have a user account and be logged in.

Date Restrictions

Patients submit a preferred date when requesting a visit. The system validates that the preferred date is not in the past. Patients can also indicate whether they are flexible on the date and provide alternative dates if their first choice is unavailable.

Patient Experience

When a patient accesses self-scheduling from their portal, the process depends on the booking mode of the available time slots.

Direct Booking (Self-Schedule Mode)

For time slots configured as self-schedule:

1. The patient navigates to the scheduling section of their portal.
2. Available time slots are displayed based on the provider’s calendar.
3. The patient selects a time slot, chooses a visit type, and optionally enters a reason for the visit.
4. The patient confirms the booking.
5. The visit is created immediately with a status of Scheduled.
6. A confirmation email is sent to the patient.

Request and Approval Mode

For time slots configured as request-and-approval:

1. The patient fills out a visit request form that includes:
   • Preferred date and optional preferred time window (earliest and latest)
   • Visit type (selected from the available options)
   • Preferred provider (optional; the patient can leave this blank)
   • Preferred location (optional)
   • Reason for visit (free-text description)
   • Flexible on date checkbox (indicates willingness to accept alternative dates)
   • Urgent flag (indicates the request needs expedited review)
2. The patient submits the request.
3. The request appears in the staff review queue with a status of Pending Review.
4. The patient sees a confirmation message that their request has been submitted and the practice will contact them to confirm.

Patient View

Patients can view their upcoming visits and pending requests from their portal. Upcoming visits show the confirmed date, time, provider, and location. Pending requests show the preferred date and current status.

Managing Self-Scheduled Visits

Reviewing Visit Requests

Staff review incoming visit requests from the request queue:

1. Navigate to Schedule → Visit Requests.
2. The list shows all pending requests, sorted with urgent requests first, then by preferred date.
3. Select a request to view its details.

Each request shows:

• Patient name
• Preferred date and time window
• Visit type
• Preferred provider and location
• Reason for visit
• Whether the patient flagged the request as urgent
• Whether the patient is flexible on the date

Approving a Request

To approve a visit request and schedule the visit:

1. Open the request detail page.
2. Select Approve & Schedule.
3. Set the Scheduled Date and Scheduled Time (pre-filled from the patient’s preference if available).
4. Select a Provider and Location.
5. Set the Duration (defaults to 30 minutes).
6. Optionally add Staff Notes.
7. Select Save.

DPC Pro creates a visit linked to the original request and sends a confirmation notification to the patient. The request status changes to Approved.

Declining a Request

To decline a visit request:

1. Open the request detail page.
2. Select Decline.
3. Optionally add Staff Notes explaining why the request was declined.
4. Select Save.

The request status changes to Declined.

Modifying Self-Scheduled Visits

Self-scheduled visits behave the same as staff-scheduled visits after booking. Staff can:

• Edit the visit details (change provider, time, or duration)
• Reschedule the visit to a different time
• Cancel the visit

See Reschedule or Cancel Visits for details.

Self-Scheduling Links

Patients access self-scheduling through the DPC Pro patient portal. The portal provides two entry points:

• Book a Visit: for time slots configured as self-schedule, patients select a slot and confirm
• Request a Visit: for time slots configured as request-and-approval, patients submit a request form

Both options are available from the patient’s scheduling section in the portal.

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Related Pages

• How Scheduling Works
• Set Up Provider Calendars
• Visit Types and Duration
• Schedule a Visit
• Calendar Sync
• Reschedule or Cancel Visits
• Daily and Weekly Schedule Views

Need Help?

If you run into issues with patient self-scheduling, reach out to the DPC Pro support team at [email protected] or visit the scheduling troubleshooting guide.