Reschedule or Cancel Visits

When plans change, DPC Pro lets your team reschedule or cancel visits with a few clicks, and the patient is notified automatically.

Rescheduling and cancellations are a routine part of practice operations. Patients call to move appointments, providers have schedule changes, and same-day conflicts arise. DPC Pro handles both rescheduling (moving a visit to a new date/time) and cancellation (removing a visit entirely) with automatic patient notifications.

This page covers how to reschedule a visit, cancel a visit, and manage the notifications that go out to patients. You will also learn about cancellation reasons, no-show tracking, and how the waitlist handles cancelled slots.

Keeping your schedule accurate helps the whole team plan their day and keeps patients from waiting.

Reschedule a Visit

Rescheduling creates a new visit at the updated time and marks the original visit as rescheduled. The original visit is preserved in the patient’s history for record-keeping.

Steps to Reschedule

1. Open the visit you want to reschedule (from the schedule view or the patient’s record).
2. Select Reschedule.
3. Choose a New Date and New Time.
4. Optionally adjust the Duration if the rescheduled visit needs more or less time.
5. Optionally change the Provider or Location.
6. Select Save.

When you save:

• The original visit status changes to Rescheduled with a note indicating the new date and time.
• A new visit is created with the updated date, time, and provider. The new visit inherits the visit type, reason for visit, and chief complaint from the original.
• The new visit notes include a reference to the original visit time.
• The patient receives a notification about the schedule change.

Conflict Checking

Rescheduling runs the same conflict checks as a new booking. If the new time overlaps with an existing visit or blocked period, you see a warning before saving.

What Carries Over

When a visit is rescheduled, the following details carry over to the new visit:

• Patient
• Visit type
• Reason for visit
• Chief complaint
• Provider (unless you select a different one)
• Location (unless you select a different one)

The new visit starts with a status of Scheduled.

Cancel a Visit

Cancelling a visit removes it from the active schedule. Cancelled visits are not deleted. They remain in the system for reporting and audit purposes.

Steps to Cancel

1. Open the visit you want to cancel.
2. Select Cancel.
3. Enter a Cancellation Reason (required). This is an internal note that explains why the visit was cancelled.
4. Confirm the cancellation.

When you cancel:

• The visit status changes to Cancelled.
• The cancellation timestamp and the staff member who cancelled are recorded.
• The patient receives a cancellation notification.
• If calendar sync is active, the event is removed from the provider’s external calendar.
• If patients are on the waitlist for a similar time slot, the waitlist notification process is triggered automatically (see Waitlist below).

Cancellation Reasons

The cancellation reason is a free-text field. Common reasons include:

• Patient requested cancellation
• Provider unavailable
• Weather/office closure
• Patient rescheduled (when the patient initiates a reschedule by phone)
• Duplicate booking

Cancellation reasons are stored with the visit record and can be reviewed in the patient’s visit history. If a provider had begun documenting the visit, any visit notes are preserved in the record.

Terminal Status

Cancellation is a terminal status. Once a visit is cancelled, it cannot be returned to an active state. If the patient needs to be seen, create a new visit or use the reschedule workflow instead.

Patient Notifications

DPC Pro sends automatic email notifications when visits are rescheduled or cancelled.

Reschedule Notification

When a visit is rescheduled, the patient receives an email with:

• The new visit date and time
• Provider name
• Practice location
• A link to view the visit details in the patient portal

Cancellation Notification

When a visit is cancelled, the patient receives an email confirming the cancellation. The notification includes:

• The cancelled visit date and time
• Practice name and contact information

Reminder Handling

If a visit is cancelled or rescheduled before the reminder is sent, no reminder goes out for the original visit. The rescheduled visit receives its own reminder 24 hours before the new time.

No-Show Tracking

When a patient misses a visit without cancelling, staff can mark the visit as a no-show.

Marking a No-Show

1. Open the visit that the patient did not attend.
2. Select No Show from the status actions.
3. Confirm.

The visit status changes to No Show and the timestamp is recorded. No-show is a terminal status. The visit cannot be returned to an active state.

No-Show History

No-show visits remain in the patient’s visit history. Staff can see a patient’s no-show history by reviewing their past visits filtered by the No Show status. This helps identify patients who may need outreach or scheduling follow-up.

No-Show vs. Cancel

Use No Show when the patient does not arrive and does not call. Use Cancel when the patient (or your team) proactively cancels before the visit time. The distinction matters for tracking patterns and follow-up workflows.

Waitlist

When a visit is cancelled and the time slot opens up, DPC Pro can notify patients who are waiting for an earlier appointment.

How the Waitlist Works

When a visit is cancelled for a future time slot, DPC Pro automatically creates a waitlist for that slot and triggers the notification process. The notification approach depends on how soon the slot is:

More than 3 days away (sequential mode):

1. The patient at the top of the waitlist (by priority, then by the order they joined) receives an email notification.
2. That patient has 4 hours to claim the slot by clicking a link in the email.
3. If the patient does not respond within 4 hours, the offer expires and the next patient on the list is notified.
4. This continues until someone claims the slot or the list is exhausted.

3 days or fewer (broadcast mode):

1. All patients on the waitlist receive a notification at the same time.
2. The first patient to click the claim link gets the slot.
3. Once the slot is claimed, remaining patients are notified that it is no longer available.

Managing the Waitlist

Staff can view and manage waitlists from the schedule:

1. Navigate to Schedule → Waitlist.
2. Active waitlists show the slot details, number of patients waiting, and current status.
3. Select a waitlist to see the full list of patients, their position, and notification status.

From the waitlist detail, staff can:

• Add a patient: manually add a patient to the waitlist
• Remove a patient: remove a patient from the waitlist
• Reorder: change the priority order of patients on the list
• Notify: manually trigger notifications

Cancellation Policies

DPC Pro records when and by whom each visit was cancelled. You can use visit history and reports to identify cancellation patterns and follow up as needed.

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Related Pages

• How Scheduling Works
• Set Up Provider Calendars
• Visit Types and Duration
• Schedule a Visit
• Patient Self-Scheduling
• Calendar Sync
• Daily and Weekly Schedule Views

Need Help?

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