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This guide is intended for practices participating in the Local GP Access Program. Please only refer to this article if your practice is participating in this Program. |
This guide covers the essentials of setting up the Local GP Access Program from your practice. If your practice is participating, please follow the steps below to get started with the program.
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In this article |
Set up your appointment types in your practice software
Within your Practice Software, you will first need to create a new Appointment Type for booking Local GP Access appointments.
You can do this within your practice software as detailed below:
| Practice Software | Instructions |
| Best Practice |
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Pracsoft (Medical Director) |
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| Zedmed |
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| Genie |
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Create your appointment type
| An appointment type must be created in your HotDoc Dashboard prior to going live with the feature. This section takes you through the steps to setup your appointment type. |
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Log into your HotDoc Dashboard and select Bookings > Appointment Types > New Appointment Type.
- Name your new appointment type North Coast Health Connect Appt:
- Ensure Enabled for online appointments and Ask patients to enter the reason for their appointment are selected:
- In the Program Enrolment section, select 'Healthy North Coast Triage'
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Under Templates for Practitioners, update your settings by:
- Enabling for New and/or Existing patients
- Reviewing your Appointment Length
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Adjusting how far in advance patients can book the appointment type
What if my practitioners dont't accept new patients?
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For your doctor to appear as available to accept new patients through the program, it’s important to review and update their practitioner setup. The doctor must be configured to accept new patients, but this should only be enabled for the Local GP Access appointment type.
Regular new patients will not be able to book this or any other appointment type with that practitioner. Instead, they’ll be prompted to call the clinic—just as they are now.
- Link the appointment type to the applicable appointment type in your Practice Software:
- Select the practitioners who will be accepting appointments through the program (if you are creating new practitioners for the program, please see How to add or edit a Practitioner):
- Lastly, save any changes you have made by selecting the green Save button at the bottom of the screen:
Set up your session times
| There are 2 options for setting up your session times for the NCHC Program - Easy and Advanced |
Easy Set Up (recommended)
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The recommended way to manage your 10 exclusive bookings for the Local GP Access Program is to create a separate (“dummy”) practitioner within your Practice Software. This will create consistency in the appointment times and days you provide NCHC and provide you with the ability to assign different practitioners based on their availability to take the appointment. By introducing a regular schedule, it will make managing appointments for the Program easier, and eliminate the need to create Custom and Exclusive appointments for the Program within HotDoc every week or day that your GP availability changes. Note: A GP will still need to be assigned to handle bookings upon patients presenting to the clinic |
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Create a new dummy practitioner within your Practice Software, named generically as "Local GP Access" (or similar)
If you are using Best Practice, please follow these tips for setting up your dummy practitioner:
- Select the option “Practice Nurse” or “Resource” under User Category. This will prevent a licence from being used for the dummy practitioner. The consulting Doctor can then start the visit and bill under their regular User account.
- To allow a Doctor to start the visit from the dummy practitioner’s appointment book, within the BP Main Screen go to Setup > Configuration > Appointments and tick the setting Allow users to open patient records from other user’s appointments”
ⓘ IMPORTANT - Best Practice Users - Select the option “Practice Nurse” or “Resource” under User Category. This will prevent a licence from being used for the dummy practitioner. The consulting Doctor can then start the visit and bill under their regular User account.
- Set up 10 session times across each week for the practitioner within your Practice Software in accordance with the clinic’s contractual obligations with Healthy North Coast.
Locking in regular times and days will help the Local GP Access Triage Nurses find appointments more readily and assist in bookings these out for you more frequently. - Within your Appointment Book, block out the availability for the practitioner assigned to take your scheduled “dummy” Local GP Access Practitioner consultations each day from their own regular column. We recommend adding a “dummy appointment” to the relevant time slot to notify the practitioner that they are taking a Local GP Access Program appointment at that time. This is a similar process as you may already be following for Immunisation bookings, as an example.
For example:
If Dr Sally Smith will be taking the Local GP Access Program appointment between 11:00 - 11:15am, make sure you’ve blocked out this slot in her regular appointment column to ensure that the time is not taken by regular consultations.
Advanced Set Up
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If you would prefer to assign practitioners for NCHC bookings in their regular column(s), you can set up your sessions using this method instead.
This option is not recommended if you are not an experienced HotDoc user, as it will require more ongoing maintenance of your NCHC availability to ensure that your 10 exclusive bookings for the Local GP Access (NCHC) Program are made available each week.
If you opt to use the Advanced Setup Option, you must ensure that a total of 10 exclusive bookings for the NCHC Program are available across your practitioners each week.
NOTE: This means that you will also require a process for your Reception team to ensure that regular bookings are not made over the phone at times reserved for the Local GP access Program |
| Advanced Sessions Setup steps do not apply for Genie clinics. If you use Genie, you can set up Custom & Exclusive sessions by following the steps here. |
1. Within the HotDoc Dashboard, go to Bookings > Availability.
2. Create a Custom Session by following these steps:
a) Find the practitioner that you would like to allocate to a Local GP Access booking. Under their column, click and drag from a white section of the calendar.
Please note: clicking on existing blocks won't give you the option to create a new custom session.
b) Click “Custom Appointment Type Session”.
c) The duration of the Custom Session will match what you selected in the calendar. You can manually edit the start and ending time as required.
d) From the drop-down list, select the Local GP Access Appointment types for New and Existing patients.
e) Select how frequently you would like to repeat this Custom Session for the practitioner, as well as an end date if applicable.
Please note: Repeating the session on a regular basis is recommended.
3. Create an Exclusive Session by following these steps:
a) Find the Custom Session you just created for the relevant practitioner. Under their column, click and drag from a white section of the calendar.
Please note: clicking on existing blocks won't give you the option to create a new exclusive session.
b) Click “Exclusive Session”.
c) The duration of the Exclusive Session will match what you selected in the calendar. You can manually edit the start and ending time as required.
d) From the drop-down list, select the Local GP Access Appointment types for New and Existing patients.
e) Select how frequently you would like to repeat this Exclusive Session for the practitioner, as well as an end date if applicable.
4. Repeat steps (2) & (3) above until you have a total of 10 Custom & Exclusive Sessions for bookings across each week (you can find our full guide to customise sessions here).
Once you’ve completed the setup, you should see each Custom & Exclusive Session side-by-side in the Availability Calendar as shown below:
| Please note: Repeating the session on a regular basis is recommended. |
5. Because these sessions are reserved for the Local GP Access Program, they will not be shown to regular patients online; however, you will need a process to ensure that your Reception team at the clinic does not book regular patients within these appointment times.
Start Consulting for NCHC Program Appointments
If you used the Easy Setup Option
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On the day of the appointment, the practitioner allocated to take the consultation for the Local GP Access Program can start the consultation as scheduled in the “dummy” Practitioner column in your Appointment Book.
If you used the Advanced Setup Option
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On the day of the appointment, the practitioner allocated to take the consultation for the Local GP Access Program can start the consultation from their regular column in your Appointment Book.
What next?
From here, the Nurses from the Local GP Access Triage team will triage patients through their phone lines and assist in booking patients in with the appointment type you just created.
This appointment type is only visible to the Local GP Access Triage team.
If you're interested in how they make a patient booking, please see How to book using the Local GP Access by North Coast Health Connect Triage Program.