Provider Manual · Part I

Scheduling setup

Configure a physician's calendar foundations: where they work, when, what they offer, and recurring patterns. Everything here is scoped to one physician — pick the right physician first.

6 sections~11 min read6 screenshots
I
Part I

Scheduling setup

Configure a physician's calendar foundations: where they work, when, what they offer, and recurring patterns. Everything here is scoped to one physician — pick the right physician first.

1.1Open Schedule Manager

Get to the Schedule Manager

Every scheduling setting lives in one place: the Schedule Manager. Open it from the top navigation and pick the physician you are configuring before changing anything — the availability tabs are scoped to that physician.

  1. Sign in as an admin or as the physician. Admins can configure any physician and see all eleven tabs. A physician opening their own scheduling settings sees only the five Schedule tabs — the organization-wide groups are admin-only.
  2. Open Admin > Scheduling. The Schedule Manager opens with the sidebar pinned to Locations by default.
  3. Select the physician at the top of the panel. Use the Physician: picker to make sure you are editing the correct calendar. Locations, Weekly Schedule, Templates, Time Off, and Visit Config are per-physician. The picker disappears on the organization-wide tabs, because those settings are not tied to one calendar.
Locations Weekly Schedule Templates Time Off Visit Config Org Timezone Minors Patient Notifications Event Notifications Waitlist Visit Policies
Four groups in the sidebar: Schedule (Locations, Weekly Schedule, Templates, Time Off, Visit Config) is per-physician. Organization (Org Timezone, Minors), Reminders (Patient Notifications, Event Notifications), and Automation (Waitlist, Visit Policies) are organization-wide and admin-only — a change on those tabs applies to every physician in the practice at once.
1.2Basics

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.
Locations tab in Schedule Manager showing practice locations and physician location associations
Practice Locations and the per-physician Associate Location section.
Why this matters: Working hours on the next tab are stored per location per day. Add the locations a physician will actually use before configuring weekly hours, or you will have to come back and re-pick the location on each day.
1.3Working hours

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.
Weekly Schedule tab showing 9 AM to 5 PM hours Monday through Friday at Mercer Island ENT Clinic
Working hours and location for each day of the week.
1.4Visit catalog

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, whether it is bookable online, whether it is virtual, 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-checks Telehealth/Virtual Visit; Available for Online Booking is pre-set from that encounter type's scheduling flag, and Requires Pre-visit Tasks and AI Pre-visit Chat are pre-checked. Change any of them before saving.
  4. Set the scheduling guardrails. Buffer time, max per day, minimum notice (in hours), and how far ahead patients can book (in days).
  5. 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.
  6. Pick the options that apply. Telehealth/Virtual Visit, 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Choose a calendar color and save. The color shows on day, week, and month views so staff can spot visit categories at a glance.
Visit Configuration tab listing Annual Physical, Follow-up Visit, and Sick Visit cards with duration and modality
The visit catalog. Each card shows duration and whether the visit is in-person, online, or both.
The inline editor for the existing Annual Physical visit type, with Visit Type Name, Duration, Description, Scheduling Settings, Online booking windows, an Options column of checkboxes, a color row, and an Update Visit Type button — and no Encounter Type select, because that is fixed at creation
Editing an existing visit type: scheduling settings, options, and color. The Encounter Type select is absent here — it only appears while adding a new visit type.

Buffer time

Minutes of protected padding before and after the visit (0–60). Another appointment landing inside that window is blocked unless staff take the scheduling override. Useful for room turnover or charting.

Max per day

Hard cap on how many of this visit type can be booked in a single day. Leave blank for no limit.

Min notice

Smallest gap between booking time and visit start. Use it to prevent last-minute online bookings.

Max schedule ahead

How far in advance patients can book this visit type. Defaults to 90 days.

Telehealth / Virtual

Marks the visit as virtual. When Zoom is connected, telehealth visits provision a meeting automatically.

Requires Pre-visit Tasks

Assigns the patient's pre-visit work — questionnaires and forms — for this visit type, and drives the Previsit Status column and the pre-visit chips on the calendar. It does not block booking or confirmation.

Available for Online Booking

Shows the visit type to new patients on the public website booking widget. Turn off to keep it off the public site.

Patients can self-schedule (patient portal)

Lets existing patients pick this visit type when booking in the portal. If no visit types are marked self-schedulable, the portal falls back to organization default behavior.

Online booking windows

All working hours by default, or Specific windows to restrict online times to named day/time bands (up to 56 a week, 5 minutes minimum each).

Default visit type

Pre-selected in scheduling dialogs. Public landing pages use the default only when online booking is enabled; follow-up booking uses the organization's follow-up visit type names instead.

Follow-up naming: follow-up requests resolve to a visit type by name, using the organization's follow-up mapping (shipped as Follow-up Visit for office, Telehealth Follow-up for virtual, and Phone Follow-up for phone) — not a per-physician default flag. Name the physician's visit types to match the mapping your organization uses. If nothing matches, Hero EMR falls back to the first active telehealth type for virtual and phone follow-ups and the first active in-person type otherwise. The landing site still controls initial assessment and other new-patient booking flows.
1.5Recurring blocks

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.
Templates tab with the Add Template form showing type, day, start time, end time, and description fields
The template editor for recurring blocks like lunch and admin time.
Every type blocks the same way: Lunch, Meeting, Administrative, Urgent, Same Day, and Other all remove the time from bookable availability in exactly the same way — the type is a label and a color, not a booking rule. A Same Day or Urgent template does not reserve time that later opens up for same-day patients; it simply blocks the window like any other template.
Opening blocked time for one date: right-click the block on the calendar and choose Open this slot to release that single occurrence without touching the weekly template. The same menu has Edit blocked time…, Unblock this time…, and Schedule over this time… (which books straight over the block behind the override confirmation). To add a one-off bookable window on a day that is otherwise off, right-click the day and use Open Schedule….
1.6Time off

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.
There is no approval queue: the button says Request Time Off, but saving takes effect immediately — the block is live and stops bookings as soon as you click Save. Nothing is pending, and nobody has to approve it.
Time Off tab showing a monthly calendar with the Memorial Day holiday and a Request Time Off button
Time-off calendar with month/week/day views and the request flow.

Need help? Email support@heroemr.com.