Scheduling operations

Configure patient notifications and follow-up escalation

The Patient Notifications tab holds two patient-facing policies — Follow-up Reminders (when a physician asks a patient to schedule another visit) and Appointment Reminders (the standard upcoming-visit nudges). The Follow-up Reminder Policy also has a separate Care Team Escalation that can alert selected organization users if the patient still has not scheduled by the chosen date.

1. Open Admin → Scheduling → Patient Notifications. The top of the page shows the channel readiness check for email, the practice SMS sending number, and push notifications. Follow-up policy changes here are organization-wide.
2. Choose what anchors the follow-up cadence. Select Request date when each attempt should be a number of days after the request was created. Select Follow-up due date when the cadence should count backward or forward from the requested follow-up due date — the end of the follow-up window recorded by the physician.
3. Build the patient attempt rows. For a request-date cadence, enter each attempt's day after the request. For a due-date cadence, choose days before due date, on due date, or days after due date. Set the organization-local send time and one or more channels (Inbox, SMS, Email) for every row. Keep the rows in chronological order.
4. Keep a review window when needed. Minimum review window prevents the first patient outreach from sending earlier than the configured number of hours after the request is created. If a due-date offset has already passed, Hero EMR moves that attempt forward to the first eligible time instead of sending before this review window. Patient-facing sends still honor the safe contact window and channel preferences.
5. Choose who receives an unscheduled-patient alert. Under Care Team Escalation, open Inbox recipients, search the organization user list, and select one or more physicians or staff members. Then schedule the alert a number of days before, on, or after the follow-up due date. Leaving the recipient list empty turns this escalation off.
6. Know when the care-team alert fires. At 9:00 AM in the organization timezone on the selected date, each chosen recipient gets one direct Hero EMR inbox message only if the follow-up is still unscheduled. Hero EMR skips the alert when the patient has already booked and prevents duplicate alerts if the background check retries.
7. Confirm follow-up booking defaults. Follow-up reminder links resolve the organization's office or virtual follow-up visit type name against the physician's active visit types in Visit Config. If the minimum review window is 0 hours and the first eligible attempt includes Inbox, the patient portal request can appear immediately; SMS and email still respect their configured send time and safe-contact rules.
8. Set the Appointment Reminder Policy. Toggle reminders on, choose whether to bypass or respect quiet hours, and add timing offsets for each upcoming-visit reminder (for example, 7 days, 1 day, and 2 hours before).
9. Save each policy. Save Policy applies the follow-up cadence and care-team escalation to active unscheduled follow-ups. Saving the appointment policy automatically resyncs reminders for upcoming appointments; use Resync All Reminders when you need to force that rebuild.

Video-visit confirmations and reminders include a Hero join link. Patients use that link to reach the current visit and its available video meeting; they do not need to keep a separate provider meeting link.

Turn on the patient waitlist

The waitlist lets patients opt into earlier openings when the calendar fills up. When a cancellation creates a slot, Hero EMR automatically reaches out to matching patients in priority order. Configure when the waitlist is offered, how short-notice cancellations are filled, and which channels are used.

1. Open the Waitlist tab. By default the waitlist is off — toggle Patient waitlist on to enable it.
2. Set the visibility threshold. Patients only see a waitlist option when no matching slots exist within the next N days (default 14).
3. Configure short-notice fan-out. Decide when an opening counts as short-notice (default within 48 hours). Short-notice slots notify all matching patients at once — first to claim wins.
4. Configure planned-opening cohorts. For longer-lead openings, set the cohort size (how many patients to notify at a time) and the wait between cohorts (default 24 hours).
5. Pick notification channels. Email is best for planned openings; SMS for short-notice; push if patients have the app.
6. Set the entry lifecycle. Stale entries auto-expire after N days (default 90) so the queue stays accurate.

Set visit cleanup policies

Visit policies keep the calendar tidy after the fact. Two automations are available: marking still-scheduled visits as no-shows after a grace period, and cancelling clearly stale visits that were never closed out.

1. Open the Visit Policies tab. These settings are organization-wide, so they apply to every physician.
2. Choose how no-shows are handled. Under No-show handling, pick Manual (staff mark missed visits themselves — the shipped default) or Automatic (the system flips still-"Scheduled" visits to No-Show once the grace period passes). Automatic no-shows also trigger any configured no-show billing fees.
3. Set the grace period. With Automatic selected, pick a Timing preset — 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, or 60 minutes after the appointment, or Custom — and the Minutes after field takes anything from 5 to 60. The default is 15 minutes. The applies to chips underneath let you drop Telehealth so only in-person visits are auto-marked.
4. Enable Auto Cancel Stale Visits for data hygiene cleanup of forgotten or orphaned bookings. Pick how long a visit sits before it is cancelled: 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours (default), 1 week, or 2 weeks. Stale cancellation never applies a billing fee — use no-show handling for anything that should bill.
5. Click Save Policies.

Use the calendar

Once setup is complete, the calendar is the everyday surface. Open it from the top navigation. Each physician sees their own working hours (white), templates (colored blocks), time off (grey), and existing appointments (color matches the visit type).

A small video-camera marker labelled Telehealth identifies virtual visits. The Membership column is opt-in through Customize columns; membership is not added to every patient name. A visit the patient cancels from the portal or app stays on the calendar as cancelled, like one staff cancel (the eye icon hides it), and patients can see whether they or the office cancelled it. Staff who can only view the schedule aren’t offered booking or visit changes; a visit’s right-click menu tells them “Booking and changing visits is done by the front desk.”, and Open note is offered only to people who can read notes.

Common scheduling setup issues

Who can book online, and who hears about it

“Online” here means every patient channel: the patient portal and app, your website’s booking widget, and the AI phone agent. Your staff can always book anything from the calendar.

Offices patients can’t book online

Each practice location has a Patients can book here online switch (in the location form on the Locations tab): “… AI phone agent, patient portal and website. Turn off for offices you schedule elsewhere (for example a hospital clinic). You can still book here yourself.” With it off, patients are offered no times at that office, the office can’t be your website’s default, a waitlist opening there is never offered to patients, and a patient booking there is told “This office isn’t available for online or phone booking. Please call the practice.”

Visit types only some patients can book online

In a visit type’s editor, Who can book this online offers:

The visit type card then reads Who can book online: …, and Practice visit types marks it (seen before only). A department can override it for its visits (see Department settings).

Online booking alerts

Admin → Scheduling → Online Booking Alerts (under Organization, for practice administrators) lets the people you choose know when a patient books, reschedules or cancels online. Appointments your staff make never send an alert.

1. Tick Send online booking alerts (off by default).
2. Choose Who gets alerts from your team.
3. Choose How to send them: In Hero (a to-do for each person, linked to the patient’s chart, that rings like any due to-do), Email, or both. For privacy the email never includes the patient’s name or details: only the visit type, the date and time, the provider, how it was booked and a link to open Hero.
4. Save. The page confirms Online booking alerts are on.

A to-do reads New online booking: followed by the visit type, the time, the provider and how it was booked (for example Patient portal or app, Practice website or AI phone agent); reschedules and cancellations start Online reschedule and Online cancellation. Turning alerts off, or taking someone off the list, takes effect at once.

Website and phone-agent booking holds

When a new patient reserves a time on your website, or with the AI phone agent, the time is held on your calendar as Pending registration while they finish registering in the patient portal. If they don’t finish in time, the time is released.

Set how long a hold lasts

Admin → Scheduling → Website Holds (under Organization, for practice administrators):

• Hold time slot for … hours while the patient finishes registration: 1 to 72 hours (24 unless you change it).
• Reminders for website bookings, up to 3: Send reminder … hours after booking via Email and/or Text, in half-hour steps. They are sent only while registration is unfinished and at least 30 minutes of the hold remain; texts go out between 8:00 AM and 8:30 PM practice time. With no reminders, patients get only the confirmation email when they book.

Changes apply to new holds only.

Confirm a hold yourself

When you reach the patient before they finish registering online, take the visit off hold with Confirm appointment: in the visit’s right-click menu (Confirm appointment…), in the preview pane’s Pending registration box, or by double-clicking the visit. It needs permission to manage the schedule. Until then the visit sits on a placeholder chart, so the calendar hides check-in, no-show, status changes, payment and portal invite for it; edit, reschedule and cancel still work.

1. Check the booking. Booking shows how the patient booked (Booked via website or Booked by the AI phone agent), the name they gave, the time, provider, visit type, phone and email.
2. Answer Which chart is this? Hero lists the charts in your practice that may be this patient; check the date of birth with them and pick one. Or choose New patient — create a chart and fill in New chart: legal first and last name, date of birth (they’ll enter the same date of birth to finish registering online), sex and mobile phone, plus email; for a child, a parent or guardian with a phone number or email. If the new chart looks like an existing one, Hero shows the possible duplicates with Use this chart, or Create a new chart anyway.
3. Decide about Online registration. Tick Send a link to finish registering online to send a fresh link (it says where it goes), or leave it off: the patient can still use the link they already have. Either way they are still asked for their address, insurance and consent forms, with what you entered filled in. A patient who already has a portal account needs no link.
4. Click Confirm appointment. The visit is booked on the real chart and the practice to-do for the hold is completed: “Appointment confirmed for …. Registration link sent by text and email.” When the patient later finishes registering, it goes into that chart and nothing is booked twice.

If the patient finished registering online but hasn’t saved the card the visit type requires, the window shows Registered patient instead: “Confirming books the visit without a card on file.” If the hold was released or confirmed meanwhile, it says “This booking is no longer waiting on registration. The calendar will refresh.”

Alert your team about visits that aren’t ready

Admin → Scheduling → Visit Readiness Alerts (under Organization, for practice administrators) gives chosen people a to-do when an upcoming visit is still missing paperwork, questionnaires or insurance, in time to follow up before the patient arrives. Patients keep getting their own reminders; this never messages them.

A sentence under the form says what will happen, for example “Front Desk will get a to-do 48 hours before a new patient’s first visit that is still missing paperwork, questionnaires or insurance.”

The to-do

Each person gets one to-do per visit, for example Not ready for Thu 10/16 2:00 PM New Patient Visit: followed by what is missing, with the details (forms by the title the patient sees) in its notes. It rings when it is filed, opens the patient, updates itself as forms come in (without ringing again), and closes by itself once everything is done, the visit is cancelled or moves out of the window, or its time passes. Completing or deleting it is your acknowledgement: you won’t be alerted again about that visit while it stays in the window. See Todo lists.

In the calendar’s visit preview, the pre-visit section shows Staff alerted Oct 15, 10:30 PM · to-do open (or to-do closed), in practice time, so nobody chases the same patient twice.

Rooming: name your visit statuses and add your own

Admin → Rooming (for practice administrators, the owner and office managers who manage practice settings): “Name your visit statuses, choose how they look on the calendar, add statuses of your own, and choose which status changes happen on their own. Nothing changes until you save.” With nothing saved, the calendar looks and works as before. Save Changes updates the calendar for everyone.

Visit statuses

Each built-in status (Not arrived, Confirmed, Checked in, Patient joined, Physician joined, With doctor, Completed, No-show, Cancelled) can get a new name (up to 32 characters), a color and an icon. Staff see the new name on the calendar and when they right-click a visit; leave a name blank to keep Hero’s wording. The statuses staff can pick under Set status manually in the right-click menu have an In menu switch to take them out of the menu; the others read Own action (set by their own action or automatically).

Your own statuses

Add the steps your team tracks, up to 20, with Add a status or a suggestion (In lobby, In room, Vitals done, Ready for provider, Checkout). Give each a name, color and icon, and order them with the arrows: the right-click menu lists them in that order. Staff set them by right-clicking a visit (and Clear “…” removes one). They are set by hand only, and the next real status change (for example Checked in or With doctor) replaces them. They can’t be set on a cancelled, no-show or held visit. Removing one takes it off any visit showing it.

On the calendar

Color the whole appointment row: each visit’s row in the day list takes the color of its status, so the front desk can see where everyone is at a glance. Off (the default) colors only the status label.

Automatic status changes

What Hero changes on its own. Turn one off to have staff set that status by hand from the right-click menu. Your own statuses are never set automatically.

Staff need the Additional Features permission to switch the two that are shared with Scheduling settings.