Visit Types and Duration

Visit types categorize the appointments your practice offers, each with a defined duration, description, and booking rules.

DPC practices offer a range of visit types: annual wellness exams, acute sick visits, follow-ups, procedures, and more. Each visit type in DPC Pro has a name, duration, and optional booking restrictions. Defining visit types reserves the right amount of time for each appointment.

This page covers how to create and manage visit types, set durations, and control which visit types are available for patient self-scheduling versus staff-only booking. Visit types appear on the schedule and help your team understand the day at a glance.

Getting visit types right from the start reduces scheduling conflicts and sets appropriate expectations for patients.

Available Visit Types

DPC Pro includes the following built-in visit types:

Visit Type	Description
New Patient	First visit with your practice. Often longer to cover intake, history, and initial assessment
Follow Up	Continuing care for an existing concern or treatment plan
Annual Physical	Yearly comprehensive wellness exam
Sick Visit	Acute illness, symptom evaluation, or urgent same-day concern
Procedure	In-office procedures such as biopsies, injections, or minor surgery. You can bill separately using add-on charges
Consultation	Focused discussion, care planning, or second opinion
Telehealth	Video-based remote visit
Phone Call	Phone-based visit or check-in
Other	Any visit that does not fit the categories above

When scheduling a visit, staff select the visit type from this list. The selected type appears on the schedule view and in patient notifications.

Set Duration

Each visit has a configurable duration that determines how much time is blocked on the provider’s calendar. The default duration is 30 minutes, but you can set durations ranging from 15 minutes to 90 minutes when booking.

Available duration options:

• 15 minutes: brief check-ins, phone follow-ups
• 30 minutes: standard follow-up visits, sick visits
• 45 minutes: longer evaluations, new patient visits
• 60 minutes: annual physicals, complex consultations
• 90 minutes: extended procedures, comprehensive evaluations

Setting Duration When Booking

When creating a visit, the Duration field defaults to the provider’s standard visit length (configured in the provider’s practice assignment settings). Staff can adjust the duration for individual visits based on clinical need.

To change the default visit duration for a provider:

1. Navigate to the provider’s practice assignment settings.
2. Update the Default visit duration field.
3. Select Save.

This default applies whenever staff book a visit for this provider. It does not affect visits that have already been scheduled.

Duration Per Visit, Not Per Type

Duration is set per individual visit, not globally per visit type. A follow-up visit might be 15 minutes for one patient and 45 minutes for another. Staff choose the appropriate duration at booking time based on the patient’s needs.

How Duration Affects the Calendar

When a visit is booked, DPC Pro calculates the end time by adding the duration to the start time. For example, a visit starting at 10:00 AM with a 30-minute duration blocks the calendar until 10:30 AM. The system checks for conflicts with this calculated time range. If another visit overlaps, a warning is shown.

Booking Restrictions

Visit types can be restricted based on how the time slot is configured. This lets you control the patient experience and protect specific time blocks.

Slot-Level Visit Type Restrictions

When setting up a schedule template slot, you can optionally restrict which visit types are allowed during that time block. For example:

• A morning block from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM might be restricted to New Patient and Annual Physical visits only.
• An afternoon block from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM might allow all visit types.

If no restrictions are set on a time slot, all visit types are available for booking during that window.

Self-Scheduling Eligibility

Each time slot can be configured with a booking mode:

• Self-schedule: patients can book this visit type directly from the portal
• Request and approval: patients submit a request that staff must review and approve

This means you can make certain visit types (like follow-ups) available for self-scheduling while requiring staff involvement for others (like procedures or new patient visits).

For details on configuring self-scheduling, see Patient Self-Scheduling.

Provider Availability Settings

Providers can be marked as not accepting new patients. When this setting is active, the provider does not appear as an option for New Patient visit types during patient self-scheduling. Staff can still manually book new patient visits with that provider.

Edit or Deactivate a Visit Type

Editing Visit Types

Visit types in DPC Pro use a standard list that is consistent across all practices in your organization. When staff book a visit, they select from this list, and the selected type is stored with the visit record.

Changing Visit Types After Booking

You can change the visit type on an existing visit by editing the visit details. Open the visit, update the Visit Type field, and save. The change is reflected on the schedule view and in any future notifications.

Filtering by Visit Type

On the schedule template, use the Allowed visit types setting on individual time slots to control which types can be booked in each window. Leaving this field empty allows all visit types.

Impact on Reporting

Visit types are recorded with each visit and appear in practice reports. Changing a visit type after the fact updates the record. Completed visits retain their original type unless manually updated. The visit type also carries over into visit notes, helping providers document care accurately.

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Related Pages

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

Need Help?

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