Flu appointments may require more than one practitioner to facilitate. Because of this, HotDoc has a 'Tandem Appointment' feature where you can set a bookable practitioner (e.g. Doctor) to be booked alongside a secondary practitioner (e.g. Nurse) for a specific appointment type.

This guide will take you through what this looks like when a patient makes a booking, as well as how to set this up for your practitioners.

Note: If you have set up multiple bookings in one appointment slot, this will work with tandem appointments. 

How to setup a new Flu appointment as a Tandem Appointment type

1. To setup a new Flu Tandem Appointment type, log in to the HotDoc Dashboard and navigate to Vaccinations > Flu, if this is your first flu vaccine appointment type you will need to follow the checklist, if you're setting up an existing appointment type you will need to click + New appointment Type.
   

   Vaccination > Flu > Checklist (First-time flu setup)	Vaccination > Flu > + New Appointment Type (Adding Additional Flu Appointment)

   
   
2.  Follow the setup wizard to the HotDoc Appt Setting Tab. From here, Yes next to Do you want to schedule a nurse practitioner to administer the vaccine? and you must customise the following settings:
   
   - Whether the Supporting Practitioner is seen before, during or after the Primary Practitioner
   
   - The Appointment duration for the Supporting Practitioner
   
   - The Maximum wait time between practitioners
   
   - Select the new, existing or both checkboxes next to the Type of patient this setup applies to 
   
   - Select supporting practitioners that perform this appointment from the dropdown menu
   
   
3. Select Finish to save your changes.
   
   

   The supporting practitioner should never be enabled to offer that same appointment type online. Main practitioners cannot be supporting practitioners for the same appointment type.

How to setup an existing appointment type as a Tandem Appointment type

1. To setup a Tandem Appointment type, log in to the HotDoc Dashboard and navigate to Bookings > Appointment Types > select Edit for the flu appointment type you want to change:
   
   
   
   
2. Scroll down to Tandem Appointments and select Add Supporting Practitioner:
   
   
   
   
3. From here, you must customise the following settings:
   
   - Whether the Supporting Practitioner is seen before, during or after the Primary Practitioner
   
   - The Appointment duration for the Supporting Practitioner
   
   - The Maximum wait time between practitioners
   
   - Select the new, existing or both checkboxes next to the Type of patient this setup applies to 
   
   - Select supporting practitioners that perform this appointment from the dropdown menu
   
   
   
   
4. Select Save to save your changes.
   

How to setup a Tandem Appointment per practitioner

Tandem Appointment settings are also within the practitioner profile section of the HotDoc Dashboard. This allows you to set up individual practitioners to take tandem appointments for an appointment type. To set this up, follow the instructions below

1. Log in to the HotDoc Dashboard and navigate to Bookings > Practitioner Setup > select Edit for the primary practitioner you wish to add this feature to:
   
   
   
   
2. Scroll down to the Appointment Types for [Practitioner] and select edit next to the flu appointment type you wish to switch on the feature for:
   
   
   
   
3. Scroll down on the Edit page to the Tandem Appointments section and select Add Supporting Practitioner:
   
   
   
   
4. From here, you must customise the following settings:
   
   - Whether the Supporting Practitioner is seen before, during or after the Primary Practitioner
   
   - The Appointment duration for Supporting Practitioner
   
   - The Maximum wait time between practitioners
   
   - Select the new, existing or both checkboxes next to Type of patient this setup applies to 
   
   - Select supporting practitioners that perform this appointment from the dropdown menu
   
   
   
   
5. Lastly, select the green Save button to save your changes!
   
   

How does this appear in my appointment book?

For the patient, their booking journey remains the same. When they choose the primary practitioner and the appointment type, they will choose a time that suits based upon your settings.

• Once the appointment is confirmed, HotDoc will place two appointments in the book as configured, one for the Primary Practitioner and one for the Secondary Practitioner:
  
  
  

Example of how a tandem booking appears in an appointment book

• How the appointments are entered will depend on how you've configured the Primary Practitioner and the specific appointment type (e.g. before, during, after and the durations set)
  
  
• If you have more than one Secondary Practitioner linked and have set a 'maximum time between practitioners', HotDoc will choose the Secondary Practitioner that has the closest time available to the Primary Practitioner.