Scheduling setup

Get to the Schedule Manager

Every scheduling setting lives in one place: the Schedule Manager. Open Admin > Scheduling. It opens on your own provider profile when you are a provider; administrators, office managers and staff who manage schedule templates pick the provider with the Physician picker at the top. The picker disappears on the organization-wide sections, because those settings are not tied to one calendar.

The sidebar has four groups. You see only the sections your account can use:

Staff with none of these permissions see “You don’t have access to the Schedule Manager. Provider schedules, templates, time off and visit settings are managed by providers, practice administrators and office managers.”

Add and associate practice locations

A physician can only be scheduled at locations that are part of the organization and explicitly associated with their calendar. The first physician on a new organization typically also creates the practice's primary location.

1. Open the Locations tab. The top half shows the organization's practice locations; the bottom half shows the locations associated with the selected physician.
2. Add organization locations (admins). Click Add Location and fill the form. Location Name, Phone, Address Line 1, City, State, and ZIP Code are required; Address Line 2, Fax, Office Email, Facility NPI, and Status are optional. Tick Set as primary practice location for the organization's main site, then click Add Practice Location.
3. Associate a location with the physician. In the Associate Location section, pick an active location from the dropdown and click Associate.
4. Set the physician's primary location. On the physician's associated-locations table, click Set Primary on the row they normally work from. This is a separate setting from the organization's Set as primary practice location checkbox — that one marks the practice's main site, this one marks the default for this physician.
5. Remove a location if it no longer applies. Use Remove on the associated locations table. Existing appointments are not deleted, but new appointments cannot be booked at that location.

Set the weekly schedule

The weekly schedule defines, for each day, whether the physician is working, what hours they are available, and which location those hours are at. Patients can only book within these windows (minus any breaks or time off).

1. Open the Weekly Schedule tab. You will see seven rows — one per day of the week — showing the current hours and location, or "Non-working day".
2. Edit a day's hours. Double-click the day row or use the Edit schedule button. Set the start and end time, pick the location, and save.
3. Mark non-working days. Double-click the day row (or use the pencil) to put it in edit mode, then click Non-working next to Save. The row then reads (Non-working day) and Not scheduled, and the day is removed from bookable availability. There is no way to save a day with empty hours — Save always requires a valid time range and a location, so Non-working is the only way to clear a day.
4. Repeat for every day the physician works. Different locations on different days are supported — for example, Mon/Wed/Fri at clinic A and Tue/Thu at clinic B.

Build the visit catalog

Visit types are the building blocks of the calendar. Each one defines how long an appointment lasts, what color it is, where it happens (your office, telehealth, the patient's home, or an outside facility such as a hospital or surgery center), whether it is bookable online, and which scheduling guardrails (notice, max-per-day, buffer) apply.

1. Open the Visit Config tab. A new physician has no visit types — the tab shows No visit types configured. Create at least one active visit type before anything can be booked. Typical starters are an Annual Physical at 45 minutes, a Follow-up Visit at 25 minutes, and a Sick Visit at 20 minutes, but nothing is created for you.
2. Click Add Visit Type or Edit visit type on an existing card. The editor opens inline.
3. Fill in the basics. Give the visit a name and a duration in minutes (5–480). The description is optional but shown on the booking page. When you are creating a new visit type you must also pick an Encounter Type * — the select is only rendered while adding, and Save stays disabled until you choose one. Editing an existing visit type never shows that select: the encounter type is fixed at creation, and the expanded card displays it read-only instead, as an Encounter Type block listing its code, name, and whether it is billable. Picking a telehealth-flavored encounter type (code TV, PC, or EV, or a name containing tele, virtual, phone, or e-visit) pre-selects Telehealth as the setting; picking the Surgery encounter type (code SURG) pre-selects Outside facility with a booking-time length. Available for Online Booking is pre-set from that encounter type's scheduling flag, and Requires Pre-visit Tasks starts on; AI Pre-visit Chat starts off. Change any of them before saving.
4. Decide whether the length is fixed or set at booking. Tick Set the length when booking for visits that differ case to case, such as surgeries. Staff then pick the length each time they book (quick picks from 30 minutes to 8 hours, or any number of minutes), and the duration on the visit type is only the starting value. Leave it unticked and every booking takes the visit type's duration.
5. Say where the visit happens. Where does this visit happen? offers four settings: In office (one of your practice locations, during office hours), Telehealth (a virtual visit; a meeting is created through your configured video provider), Home / travel (you go to the patient; adds route-based travel buffers), and Outside facility (a hospital, surgery center, hospital outpatient clinic, or nursing facility). Only one applies at a time.
6. For an outside facility, name the facility and the place of service. Search Facility across your practice's facility list and the NPI registry, or enter one manually (name and street address; the NPI is recommended). The same list serves the rounding module, so a hospital entered once is available everywhere. Then choose Bills as (place of service): 22 for a hospital outpatient clinic or campus, 24 for an ambulatory surgery center, 21 for an inpatient stay, or 19, 23, 31, 32, 49, 71 for the other facility settings. Both are required; Create stays disabled until they are set.
7. Set the scheduling guardrails. Buffer time, max per day, minimum notice (in hours), and Booking limit (days ahead). New visit types start with a 90-day limit. Tick No limit to remove that maximum for staff and patient booking. Other availability and booking rules still apply.
8. Choose when the visit type is offered online. Online booking windows defaults to All working hours. Switch to Specific windows to restrict this visit type to named day/time bands — up to 56 windows a week, each at least 5 minutes long. Windows are intersected with the day's working hours, so patients are only offered times inside both. The visit-type card then summarizes the setting as All working hours, N windows/week, or Staff Only.
9. Choose the suggested date and staff start times. Suggest a date this far out takes a number of days, weeks, or months. Choosing this visit type in the scheduler jumps to the first opening on or after that interval from today; leave it empty for soonest openings. It does not move an existing visit or replace a date staff already chose. Under Start times on the scheduling page, choose Every 15 minutes, any open time (the default), a visit-length interval, or Every … minutes. The custom interval uses Minutes between start times. Tick Only inside this visit type's online booking windows to restrict staff suggestions to the online windows too. These choices shape suggestions; staff can still type a custom time and confirm any required override. They do not change the patient booking grid.
10. Pick the options that apply. Requires Pre-visit Tasks (with the nested AI Pre-visit Chat), Available for Online Booking, Patients can self-schedule (patient portal), Default Visit Type, and Active. Online booking and portal self-scheduling are two independent switches; the card badge reads Public, Portal, Public + Portal, or Staff Only depending on which are on. An outside-facility visit type is always Staff Only: both patient switches are off and locked, because a patient can never book an operating-room block. Who can book this online limits online booking to Anyone, Only patients who have been seen before or Only patients on a patient list (see Who can book online).
11. Match the organization's follow-up visit type names. The office / virtual / phone follow-up mapping is an organization setting, not a per-physician one, and it matches by visit type name. The shipped names are Follow-up Visit, Telehealth Follow-up, and Phone Follow-up. Give the physician an active visit type matching the names your organization uses; if nothing matches, Hero EMR falls back to the physician's first active telehealth visit type for virtual and phone follow-ups and their first active in-person type otherwise.
12. Choose a calendar color and save. The color shows on day, week, and month views so staff can spot visit categories at a glance. An outside-facility card shows its facility and place of service (for example Providence Saint John's Health Center · POS 22) in place of In-Person, and a booking-time length reads 240 min · set at booking.

What an outside-facility visit type does

Choosing Outside facility is what makes a surgery or a hospital-clinic session bill and schedule correctly with nothing extra to do per visit:

• Billing follows the visit type. Every encounter booked with it carries the visit type's place of service on the claim (CLM05-1 / CMS-1500 box 24B), and the facility's name, NPI, and street address go on the claim as the service facility (loop 2310C / box 32). The rate a service prices at follows the place of service, so a facility code prices at the facility rate automatically. The clinician can still change the place of service for one visit in Charge Capture, and that explicit choice always wins.
• Booking ignores office hours. An operating-room block at 06:30, or a hospital clinic on a day with no office session, books without a scheduling override. The office-hours, weekly-schedule, and break checks are skipped for this visit type; Hero EMR still warns when it overlaps another appointment or the physician's time off, because a physician cannot be in two places at once.
• The facility can change per booking. The booking dialog pre-selects the visit type's facility and lets staff switch to any other facility on the practice's list for that one case — a surgeon operating at two hospitals keeps one Surgery type. The facility name shows where the location normally appears on the calendar and in the appointment table.
• Patients never see it. Outside-facility visit types are staff-booked only; they are hidden from the website booking widget and the patient portal regardless of the online switches.

Create one outside-facility visit type per setting you work in — for example Surgery (POS 22 at the hospital, length set at booking), ASC Case (POS 24 at the surgery center), and Hospital Clinic (POS 22, 15 minutes) — and the right codes and facility follow every booking automatically.

Add weekly templates for breaks and admin time

Templates are recurring blocks that repeat every week — lunch, recurring meetings, admin time, urgent slots, and same-day reserves. Once saved, they are removed from bookable availability and shown on the calendar with their own color.

1. Open the Templates tab and click Add Template.
2. Pick the template type. Lunch, Meeting, Administrative, Urgent, Same Day, or Other.
3. Choose the day of the week and the start and end time. Add an optional description (it shows on the block).
4. Save. The block appears every week on the calendar from now forward and is removed from bookable availability.

Change the schedule for specific dates

When a few dates should not follow the weekly pattern — a longer clinic day, a day the office is closed, a day without the usual lunch or consultation blocks — change just those dates with Change schedule… on the calendar. The weekly schedule and templates are not touched, and every date you do not select keeps its current schedule. One editor covers one physician and up to 31 dates: you preview the effect on each date, then save them all at once.

Where to find it

The editor opens on the date you came from, for the physician whose calendar or column you used. These entry points are hidden while shuffle mode is on.

Make the change

Under Change the editor offers three choices:

1. Choose the dates. The editor starts with the date you clicked. Add date adds another row (the day after your latest date — change it to any date you need), and the × beside a date removes it. Pick up to 31 dates, from today up to a year ahead; past dates cannot be changed. The header shows the physician, your practice's time zone, and how many dates are selected.
2. Pick Set hours, Close day, or Restore regular schedule. The remaining steps about hours, breaks, and holidays apply to Set hours only.
3. Enter the hours. The Hours list starts with the clicked date's current hours. Each window has a start time, an end time, and a location chosen from the physician's locations; Add window adds another for a split day or a second location. These windows replace the date's usual hours and any one-off Open Schedule… windows at every location, so a location with no window is closed that day. Windows at the same location cannot overlap.
4. Decide about breaks. Keep usual breaks (the default) keeps the template blocks that normally fall on each date, and the editor lists them (Usual breaks on …). Use only the blocks shown here replaces them with an editable list, prefilled from the clicked date's usual blocks: each block has a start, an end, a kind (Lunch, Meeting, Admin, Urgent hold, Same-day hold, or Block), and an optional label, and Add block adds one. Remove every block to ignore the usual lunch and consultation reservations on those dates — the editor confirms No routine blocks: the usual lunch and consultation reservations will not apply on these dates. The same list applies to every selected date.
5. Tick Work on holiday if it appears. It only shows when a selected date is an organization holiday the physician does not work. Tick it to open the hours anyway; otherwise the holiday keeps that day closed.
6. Add a reason (optional). A short note, up to 500 characters, such as Covering the Wednesday clinic. Everyone who opens the date's Changed badge sees it.
7. Click Preview changes. Nothing is saved yet. The preview lists every date with what changes and what needs your attention (see the table below). Edit anything afterwards and the preview is marked out of date (The draft changed after this preview. Preview again before saving.); click Refresh preview. Saving is only possible from a current preview.
8. Acknowledge and save. If the preview lists appointments outside the new hours, tick These N appointments stay booked outside the new hours (This appointment … when there is one). Then click Save N dates (for example Save 2 dates). Every date changes together or none does, and a Schedule changed confirmation appears.

Worked example: two long Wednesdays without breaks

A physician wants two upcoming Wednesdays to run from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM straight through, without the usual lunch and consultation blocks. Every other Wednesday stays as it is.

1. Open Day view on the first Wednesday and click Change schedule….
2. Click Add date and set the new row to the second Wednesday. The header now ends in 2 dates.
3. Leave Set hours selected and set the window to 09:00–18:00 at the physician's usual location.
4. Under Breaks, choose Use only the blocks shown here and remove every block with its × until the editor shows No routine blocks.
5. Optionally type a reason, such as Extended Wednesday clinic.
6. Click Preview changes. Each Wednesday shows its usual hours and blocks → 9:00 AM–6:00 PM · no routine blocks, with the dropped blocks under No longer applies. The summary reads along the lines of Set hours 09:00–18:00 on 2 dates. Usual routine blocks (lunch, consultations) will not apply on these dates.
7. Tick the acknowledgment if any appointments are listed, then click Save 2 dates. Both Wednesdays now carry the Changed badge; the Wednesdays you did not select are unchanged.

The Changed badge, Undo, and Restore

After a save, a Changed badge appears in the Day view header and in the Week view day header of every changed date. Click it to open Changed for this date:

• Hours — the date's resulting hours, or Closed, with its blocks.
• Reason — the note entered with the change, if any.
• Changed by — who made the change, and when.

With the permission above, the panel also offers two actions. Press Esc or click elsewhere to close it.

Every booking path follows the change

What it does not do

• Recurring changes that start on a date. Change schedule… edits specific dates only; it cannot set up a weekly change that begins on a future date, such as no Wednesday clinic from next month on. Weekly patterns are still edited on the Weekly Schedule tab. For a known set of future dates, select them here instead — up to 31 at a time.
• Describing the change in words. There is no natural-language input; pick the dates and hours in the editor.
• Moving, cancelling, or messaging. Existing appointments stay booked and patients are not notified.
• Removing time off on its own. Time off that overlaps the new hours keeps blocking them unless you tick Release this occurrence in the preview.
• Changing the weekly schedule, templates, or holidays. Those stay exactly as they are; only the selected dates differ.
• Changing past dates. Only today and later dates can be changed.

Block vacations, holidays, and one-off days

Time off blocks a physician's calendar for vacations, CME days, or a single morning out of office — one-off or repeating. Time off overrides working hours and templates for the dates it covers.

1. Open the Time Off tab. The calendar view shows the current month with existing time off and the organization's holidays marked.
2. Click Request Time Off. Enter an Event Name, pick the Date, then either tick All Day or set a Start Time and End Time, and click Save.
3. Block more than one day with Repeat. The dialog holds a single date, so a week of vacation is entered as Repeat → Daily with an End Date. Weekly, Monthly by date, Monthly by weekday, and Yearly are available too, for standing half-days and annual closures.
4. Handle holidays. Organization holidays appear on this calendar as all-day grey events and block the day automatically. Click one and confirm Work on this holiday? to give this physician a working override — the event turns green and reads (Working). Click it again and confirm Revert to day off for this holiday? to put the day back.
5. Switch between month, week, and day views. Use the buttons in the toolbar to drill in on a specific date or browse upcoming entries in the panel below the calendar. Clicking a time-off event asks whether to delete it.

Set up visit types once for the whole practice

Admin > Scheduling > Practice visit types (under Organization): “Set up visit types once for the whole practice. Every provider gets them and can adjust the scheduling details for themselves in Visit Config, turn one off, or add their own.” Practice administrators can open it; changing it needs permission to manage providers (“You can view this list. Changing it needs permission to manage providers.”).

Build the list

1. Start from what your providers already use. Add from your providers’ visit types lists every visit type name your providers have, with Providers who have it, Added for the others and the Differences between their setups. Tick Add to the practice list for each one you want, and Give to every provider to create it for providers who don’t have it. A provider’s existing visit type of the same name starts following the list instead of being duplicated. The result lists what was Added to the practice list, which providers’ visit types now follow it, and which were created.
2. Or add one from scratch with Add visit type. The editor has the same fields as Visit Config (see Build the visit catalog), and, when your practice has departments, Offered by (see Departments on the schedule). It confirms “… was added. Every provider now has it.” A new practice visit type starts staff-only: patients can book it online only once you turn online booking on for it.
3. Keep providers in step. Sync providers “Gives every current provider any practice visit types they’re missing; doesn’t change ones they have.” A provider who is made active again gets the practice visit types too.

The table shows each visit type’s Length, Where, Online booking (Website, Portal, Staff only, or (seen before only)), Providers (click it to see who offers it and what each changed) and an On switch. Turning one off asks “Turn off … for every provider? Patients and staff can’t book it until you turn it back on. Appointments already booked stay as they are.” Deleting it takes it off every provider’s list; booked appointments keep their visit type.

What providers see in Visit Config

• A practice visit type is marked Practice (From your practice’s visit type list). Settings a provider changed for themselves are marked Customized (You changed this from your practice’s setting), and Reset to practice settings puts them back. Settings the practice controls read Set by your practice.
• A provider can’t delete a practice visit type; they switch off Offer this visit type instead. One the practice turned off reads Turned off by your practice and can’t be turned on there.
• A provider can’t add their own visit type with the same name as a practice one: “Your practice already has a visit type called …. Use that one (turn it on if it’s off), or choose a different name.”

Choose the follow-up buttons in the visit

Admin > Scheduling > Follow-up Buttons (under Organization) sets “The quick choices in a visit’s Follow-up section (‘2 weeks’, ‘1 month’, …), which one is chosen to start with, and whether there are ‘No follow-up’ and ‘As needed (PRN)’ buttons.” Choosing a time sends the patient a reminder to book; No follow-up and As needed (PRN) send none.

• Defer to individual providers? Yes (until you change it): each provider sets their own buttons with Edit buttons in a visit’s Follow-up section; providers who never change theirs see 2 weeks (chosen to start with), 1 month, 3 months and 6 months. No: the practice sets the buttons here for everyone and providers don’t see Edit buttons; providers’ own buttons are paused and come back if you switch back.
• The buttons. Up to 8, each a Number and unit, one Pre-selected, in the order you set; tick Offer No follow-up and As needed (PRN) buttons for visits that need no return appointment.
• A visit already booked. In the visit, the Follow-up section warns when the patient already has a visit with that provider within a month of the follow-up’s due date: “Heads up: this patient already has a visit on …, within a month of this follow-up (due around …). A recall will still be sent ….”