Closing a Day

Closing a day is technically not required, but it does serve an important purpose: When a scheduling day is closed, all further activity for that day is suspended. Users cannot:

Move an appointment that has been marked seen, canceled, or no-show
Perform any cut, copy or paste functions to an appointment
Change any part of an appointment.

Users can, however, view the details and history of an appointment on a closed day.

Essentially, when a day is closed, a historical record is created that helps users manage patient flow and resource utilization. This data also provides statistical information about users that system administrators can use to monitor appointment activity for user error or inappropriate scheduling practices.

A day cannot be closed until every patient has been checked in for resources who require it by their type definition. Daily, routine maintenance, then, becomes important not only as a practice management tool but also as a means of ensuring accurate scheduling, including (a) check-in and (b) closing days as part of a daily routine helps to create the consistency needed. In some respects then, closing each day is also a measure of maintaining data integrity.

How to Close a Day

Select Check In Screen from the Main menu. The Check-in screen defaults to today's date.
Navigate to the date that you want to close.
The Check-in screen defaults to All Domains. If you have the right to the Check-in screen in more than one domain, select the domain you want to work in using the drop-down menu in the Domain field.

NOTE – Users can close only those domains to which they have rights, and only then if they have Close Day rights set to Full in their security profile.

All patient appointments on the selected day must have been checked in properly (i.e., they must be marked arrived or seen, or their appointment must have been canceled or marked no-show).
Once status is complete, click the Close Day button. One of the following results will occur:

If any additional action is required (e.g., a status requirement), then a confirmation dialog will appear. Click OK and then perform the specified action.
An information dialog will appear, indicating that you are about to close out the specified day. Click OK to continue (or Cancel to abort the operation).

If the day is closed successfully, a confirmation will appear stating the specified day was closed successfully. Simply click OK to continue.

NOTE – After closing the day, the Close Day button toggles to Re-open Day. When you close a day from the Check In screen, the action is recorded in the Audit Log. Reopening a day is also recorded in the Audit Log.

Key Considerations

Only appointments with resources who are of a type that is defined with the option Resources of this type require their appointments to be completed before days can be closed and patient cases can be discharged enabled must be checked in to close a day. Otherwise, the status is unnecessary.
If the domain has the Allow Pending Appointments for Discharging Patients and Closing Days option enabled, then users are not required to maintain the status of resources scheduled in that domain to close days for that domain.
The ability to close a day requires that "Close Day" under Change Appointment Status is set to Full in the user's security profile. If you are using a domain product and are assigned to multiple domains, you must have this right set in each domain in which you close days.
Before closing out the day, all appointments (including archived appointments) must be marked Arrived, Seen, Cancel, or No-show.
Group appointments must be checked in at the group level. That is the group appointment must be marked Arrived, Seen, Canceled, etc., or the day cannot be closed. It does not matter if every group member has been checked in individually, the appointment for the group itself is what matters for closing a day.