After taking care of our valued group practice users, we have turned our attention to the patient-facing interfaces. From speaking with many of you, we know that patient self-service is the key reason you have joined DocMeIn in the first place, looking to provide a more convenient way for patients to write themselves into your calendar. We are called DocMeIn.com for a reason — and we want the doc-me-in process to be as frictionless and effective as possible for both doctors and patients.

The most recent changes we made to the patients’ self-service interface include:

• a streamlined design of the appointment request dialog, with drop-down elements now inlined, among other usability enhancements;
• improvements to our scheduling algorithms, which now generate appointment options that are even better for practices than before;
• the flexibility to offer a configurable number of appointment options per day, which you can control through calendar settings;
• the ability to block off a certain number of days before the first self-service time slot is made available to patients.

Here is what the new scheduling dialog looks like:

The number of appointment options offered in this example is 3, which may be due one of two reasons: either there are no other appointment time slots available, or the practice chooses to limit the maximum number of appointment offers to 3. Here is an example of the practice-facing interface where this configuration option can be changed:

Also note that in this example the practice does not accept appointment requests made online less than 2 days in advance.

With these latest changes, you can take that vacation with even more certainty that you will be fully booked with appointments when you get back — even if some patients have to cancel while you are on the beach, exploring the wilderness or nearby galaxies! (Yes, we like our vacation dreams as much as you do.)