Troubleshooting Patient Self-Scheduling Issues in the SigmaMD Patient Mobile App

If a patient is unable to find availability for self-scheduling in the SigmaMD mobile app, there may be multiple reasons for this. Below are the possible causes and solutions to resolve the issue.

Check for Existing Events Blocking Availability

Any appointment or other event on the clinician’s SigmaMD calendar will prevent self-scheduling during those times. Blocks will also prevent self-scheduling if the "Block Calendar" option is turned on.

This includes external calendar events as well. Google or Microsoft events will sync with SigmaMD and block availability. If needed, disconnect all external calendars to eliminate conflicts and ensure availability for patient self-scheduling. To check or adjust external calendar settings, go to external calendar settings.

Verify Working Hours and Shifts

• The clinician may not have enabled working hours, or they may be incorrectly set.
• Additionally, shifts may be configured to exclude specific visit or appointment types, which could limit availability.

Important:

• If you add new appointment types in Practice Settings, you must manually enable them per shift in Working Hours.
• Don’t forget to click the Save button below the shift list for your changes to take effect.

To check or update working hours and shifts, go to working hours settings.

Verify the Settings for Each Appointment Type

Open your appointment settings to ensure all necessary configurations are correct for each appointment type. Click Edit next to each appointment type to review its settings.

Creating a New Appointment Type

1. Go to Appointment Types in your practice settings.
2. Click Add appointment type.
3. Enter the name and optional description.
4. Choose a color, duration, and buffer time.
5. (Optional) Assign a default resource, such as a room or equipment.

These fields help your team standardize how each visit should be handled.

Choosing Bookable Clinicians

You can control which clinicians are available for each appointment type:

• All clinicians — The appointment type is available for every clinician.
• Patient assigned clinician — Patients can only book this visit with the clinician assigned to their chart.
• Selected clinicians — Choose one or more clinicians who can be booked for this appointment type.

This makes it easy to restrict certain visit types to specific providers or specialties.

Setting Visit Types

Each appointment type can support one or more visit modalities:

• In-clinic
• At-home
• Telehealth
• Phone consultation

Patients will see only the visit types your practice supports for that specific appointment.

On your appointment type settings, check for:

• Ensure Patient Self-Scheduling is turned on.
• Earliest and Latest Scheduling Periods: These settings determine how soon and how far into the future patients can book appointments. For example, if the Earliest scheduling period is set to 1 hour, patients can schedule appointments starting one hour from the current time, allowing same-day bookings with notice. If the Latest scheduling period is set to 2 weeks, patients can only schedule appointments up to two weeks in advance.
• Availability: Appointment availability for self-scheduling depends on the appointment type’s availability setting and the patient’s past appointments.
  • All visits:
    • The appointment type is always available to the patient, regardless of past appointments.
  • First visit only:
    • Available only if the patient has no prior appointments. Appointments with a status of Archived, Canceled, or No show are not considered prior appointments.
    • Imported patients from the practice's previous EMR are excluded, even if they have no appointments in SigmaMD.
  • After first visit only:
    • Available only if the patient has at least one prior appointment. Appointments with a status of Archived, Canceled, or No show are not considered prior appointments.
    • Imported patients are treated as existing patients, reflecting their prior relationship with the practice before being imported into SigmaMD.
  • If a patient cannot see an appointment type with the availability setting:
    • First visit only - The patient already has one or more prior appointments in SigmaMD, or the patient record was imported from a previous EMR.
    • After first visit only - The patient has no prior appointments in SigmaMD, or all past appointments have a status of Archived, Canceled, or No show.
• Patient memberships: Ensure your patient matches the membership requirements.
  • If an appointment type uses a membership filter and a patient selects a future membership start date during enrollment, their membership will be set to Deferred. Patients won’t be able to self-schedule appointments while the membership is Deferred and until it becomes Active on their chosen start date. This prevents access to membership-restricted appointment types before the membership is active.
• Bookable Clinicians: Ensure that the correct clinicians are set as bookable, and that they have working hours and shifts correctly set (see number 2 above).