Steps to Configure and Enable Self-Scheduling

SigmaMD lets you offer patients the option to book their own appointments directly through the app—based on the visit types and rules your clinic defines. This guide walks you through how to enable and configure self-scheduling.

1. Choose which visit types can be self-scheduled

Go to Practice Settings > Scheduling > Appointment settings. Under Visit Types, choose the types of visits that can be self-scheduled:

• In-Clinic
• Video
• Phone
• At-Home

2. Enable self-scheduling for each appointment type

In Practice Settings > Scheduling > Appointment types, click + Appointment type, or hover over an existing one and click Manage appointment type. Under Patient Self-Scheduling:

• Turn on 'Enable patient self-scheduling'.
• Earliest time period for booking: Set the earliest time a patient can schedule an appointment. E.g. 'one week from today.'
• Maximum time period for booking: Set how far in advance a patient can schedule an appointment. E.g. 'Up to one year 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.
• Daily limit: Turn on Max appointments per day, enter a number from 1 to 99 and choose per location or per clinician. With per location, the number limits the appointments of this type each location can have in a day. With per clinician, it limits each clinician's appointments of this type in a day, across all locations. Once a limit is reached, patients can't self-schedule this type at that location, or with that clinician, on that day. Appointments your team books count toward the limit; Canceled, No show and Archived ones don't. Your team can still book past the limit from the calendar.

• Patient memberships: Create a filter based on the patient's membership
  • All memberships and none: All patients can book this appointment type.
  • All memberships: Only patients with an active membership, retail or employer, can book it.
  • No membership: Only patients without an active membership can book it.
  • Selected memberships: Only patients with an active membership in one of the plans you choose can book it.

When you choose All memberships or Selected memberships, two more toggles appear:

• Allow deferred memberships: patients whose membership hasn't started yet (Deferred) can also book it.
• Allow paused memberships: patients whose membership is Paused can also book it.

Both are off by default. Under Selected memberships, they apply only to the plans you picked. Turn on Allow deferred memberships to let migrated patients book before their membership starts.

• Bookable calendars: When self-scheduling, patients can choose a clinician or bookable resource to book with. In this field, select the option patients will see when scheduling this appointment type.
• Reason for visit: Set if patients need to text the reason for the appointment when self-scheduling; it can be set as Optional or Required.
• Note to patient: Add a note that will be seen by patients when scheduling.

Tips: Select text to format it or add links.

Repeat these steps for each appointment type you want to make available for self-scheduling.

3. Set clinician or bookable clinician availability

Each clinician must set their own working hours to appear in the booking flow.

Go to Practice Settings > Scheduling > Calendars and select a clinician or bookable calendar to:

• Define weekly hours
• Add shifts (for a lunch break, end one shift before lunch and start another after it)
• Select the appointment types and visit types each shift offers
• Turn on new appointment types in each shift; they start off in shifts that already exist

Only clinicians or bookable calendars with availability configured will appear to patients when booking.

Once set up, patients will be able to view available time slots and schedule appointments in the SigmaMD patient app, based on their eligibility.

Self-scheduling reduces administrative work, improves scheduling efficiency, and offers a smoother experience for patients.