Quick Consults is online healthcare from your doctor, powered by HotDoc. Patient requests such as online repeat prescriptions, referrals and medical certificates are sent directly to doctors via the Sidebar, reducing the phone calls to reception and admin time processing these requests. Using Quick Consults can:

• Allow doctors with full appointment books to provide better access to care & continuity of care for their existing patients
  
• Accept requests online for repeat prescriptions, referrals, medical certificates, test result follow ups 
• Practitioners can boost earnings as previous unpaid work turns into paid consults
  
• Allow practitioners to complete or decline a request, and leave a note to the patient to communicate more information all within the HotDoc Sidebar

• Keep patient files accurate by seamlessly transferring request details with our simple copy and paste solution

• Convenient and flexible for practitioners to respond to requests in their own time, or can reassign requests to other practitioners if required
• Automatically capture payment online via HotDoc reducing admin time for your team, and control these in the HotDoc Dashboard
  
• Easy reporting and reconciliation process 

If you are setting up or learning how Quick Consults works for the first time, you will be required to complete all sections below. 

1. The Patient Experience

We understand that using an online system to capture patient requests for things like scripts and referrals can be a different experience for your practice and patients.

By reviewing the patient journey, you and your team will be able to know what to expect and confidently preempt any concerns or questions. Here are some important things to know:

• When patients submit a request, they'll add their payment method and we will pre-authorise the funds for 7 days to ensure there are enough funds on the patients card. The payment may appear as 'pending' on the patients statement.  
  
  
• Once the practitioner approves the request, the patient's card will be charged. 
  
  
• If the practitioner declines the request, the patient will not be charged

2. Quick Consults set up checklist

If you're setting up for the first time, you will be required to complete the self onboarding checklist in the Dashboard under Quick Consults > Get Started > Start setting up. 

This will guide you through all the steps you need to complete before going live. 

2a. Set up your payment provider

To capture payments for requests you will be required to create and set up an account with one of our preferred payment providers, Stripe or Pin Payments. You can do this in the Payments > Payment Setup section of the Dashboard. 

Down the bottom of this page you can also set up your practitioner to have payment accounts of their own for direct to practitioner payouts. If you have already set up practitioners using Payments for bookings, you can skip this step as they are already set up!

2b. Add your account settings and quick consults request types 

Step 2 of the onboarding checklist, 'Go to Settings', will direct you to Quick Consults > Settings where you can edit the General and Advanced Settings to configure your practice details, quick consults services/request types, costs, practitioners and terms and conditions. 

Under General settings, you can: 

• Add your Practice details, including the email address we should notify when you've received a requests and for a daily summary
  
  
  
  
• The type of Quick Consults services you would like for patients to request online, eg. Repeat prescriptions, referrals and medical certificates, as well as the costs and practitioners who offer these.
  
  
  
  
• Set up the ability to automatically create and receipt invoices for patient requests in your practice software (Best Practice and Medical Director customers only). 
  
  
  
  
• Review your Promotional settings. When this is enabled it allows HotDoc to send push notifications to patients (between 11am-3pm) when a practitioner in their 'Care Team' is enabled for a new Quick Consult request type, including if when they're set up for the first time once you select 'Go live'. We recommend leaving this on if you would like push notifications to be sent to patient's to raise awareness that your practitioners offer this service. Read here for more about how this works.
  
  
  
  
• Temporarily disable requests for practice closure periods 
  

Under the Advanced settings, you can:

• Add any specific customised terms and conditions that your practice would like the patient to see when requesting a Quick Consult
• Any nominated pharmacies (prescription only if this is a delivery method you have selected). 
  

2c. Select your practitioners and set up their account

In the third step of the onboarding checklist, you can easily select which Practitioners accept online prescription and referral requests. You can also access this in the Quick Consults > Practitioner Setup section of the Dashboard.

1. In order for practitioners to action request, you will need to create a Practitioner Sidebar account by clicking Send Invite. 
   
   
   
   
2. You'll be need to select the practitioner you wish to invite and enter their nominated email address.
   
   
   
   
3. Once invited they'll receive an email to create a password, before they can log into the HotDoc Sidebar to action requests.
   

   Regular Quick Consults invite email.	If practitioner has opted out of marketing communication they will receive this email invite.

4. Select Enable services to enable them for a list of Quick Consult request types: 
   
   
   

Once they have created an account, they can:

• Approve, decline requests or reassign these to different practitioners  
• Open the patient's file in your practice software directly from the Installed HotDoc Sidebar
• Send a note directly to the patient via email all within a few minutes!

2d. Go Live!

Congratulations! By now you should have finalised your set up and you should now understand how to use Quick Consults and it's features!

If your payment provider has not been set up, you will need to complete this before you can go live.

Once you've done that, in the checklist, click 'Go Live' to launch requests on your bookings site and allow patients to start booking!

Once you've clicked 'Go Live' you will be shown a pop up confirmation as below, which includes an estimate of how much extra you could earn completing just 4 requests at the lowest price point you've set.

It also includes an optional link to 'Notify your patients' that will take you to a broadcast template you can use to inform your patients they can now access repeat prescriptions and referrals online!

For more information about how broadcast works please check out, Using Broadcasts.

3. Email communications

it is important to understand the types of email communications your practice admin, practitioners and your patients will receive about your requests.

3a. Practice Admin Emails

The Practice Admin that that you entered in the Quick Consults notification email address field in the Quick Consults > Settings.

Will receive the following emails:

• An email each time a patient has submitted a request, titled "New Repeat [prescription/referral] request for [Practitioner]"
  
  
  
• A daily summary email titled "You have repeats awaiting decisions", sent between 8am-10am each morning with information about pending requests, expired requests who you will need to follow up with manually. 
  
  
• If using Best Practice/Medical Director and have enabled automatic invoicing, we will send an email if we were unable to create an invoice. 
  

   

  Best Practice/Medical Director

  
  
  

3b. Practitioner Emails

Once you're practice is live with Quick Consults any a practitioner that has been invited (regardless of active/pending account status) and been turned on for either prescriptions, referrals, or both.

They will receive the following emails:

• An email is sent each time a patient has submitted a request, titled "Action required - You have a new patient request" 

If your practice is using the Web Sidebar, your practitioners will see this email which includes a link to view requests.	If your practice is only using the Installed Sidebar, your pratitioners will see this email.

• A daily summary email titled "Action required - review your outstanding patient requests", sent between 8am-10am each morning.

If your practice is using the Web Sidebar, your practitioners will see this email which includes a link to view requests.	If your practice is only using the Installed Sidebar, your practitioners will see this email.

• If they haven't finished setting up their account any displayed button will take them to the create a password page, which they will need to do before viewing and actioning any requests.
  

  If your practice is using the Web Sidebar, your practitioners will see this email where the button will take the to complete setup. There is a link underneath the button to log into the HotDoc Web Sidebar.	If your practice is only using the Installed Sidebar, your practitioners will see this email, prompting them to complete setup.

   

  Create a Password page.	The HotDoc Web Sidebar.

3c. Patient Emails

4. Invoicing and Reporting 

4a. Invoicing

When using Quick Consults, you'll need to create an invoice in your practice software for each request that your doctor approves. The amount you enter in the invoice should be the cost of the request (net amount, excluding fees). This will allow you to reconcile and balance your HotDoc Payments against the receipts in your practice software. 

• If using Best Practice or Medical Director, you can enable automatic invoicing so that HotDoc does this for you. We will enter the amount set for each request in your Dashboard, which is the 'net' amount (total amount excluding any fees).
  • Note: There may be times where we cannot create an invoice automatically and you will need to do this, but you will clearly this as 'Needs invoice' under Payments > Reporting > Repeats. Read more here. 
    
    
    
    
• If using Zedmed, you will need to manually create an invoice in your practice software (however your practice does this), each time practitioners complete a patient's request.
  • You can view a list of completed payments in the Payments > Reporting > Repeats tab
    
    
    
    
  • Alternatively, you can also view a list of completed requests under Quick Consults > Requests to see which invoices to create. You will also receive an email each time a request is completed. See How to view repeat script and referral requests in the HotDoc Dashboard for more. 
    
    
    

4b. Reporting and reconciliation 

• The Payment Activity section allows you to reconcile your HotDoc Payments with the receipts in your practice software, to ensure you have balanced at the end of shift. Here you will see all HotDoc Payments and can filter by the request type, for example, Repeats. 
  
  
• The Payouts section allows you to view the payouts you've received from your payment provider (Stripe or Pin Payments), and view which patients payments made up this payout. 
  
  
• When reconciling your payments, we recommend using the 'subtotal net' amount to balance, as this is what you received from the patient. As the fee is covered by the patient, you do not need to account for this amount in your invoices or reconciling. For example:
  • Cost of a repeat request set in HotDoc is $15
  • Patient pays $17.07 (fee automatically passed on to patient) 
  • You receive $15 - use this amount in the invoice, and to reconcile. 

5. Important Information 

Before getting started it is important to know about the following settings and features:

• Practitioners will be required to action patient requests via the HotDoc Sidebar. We have the HotDoc Web Sidebar, however for more features and a smoother experience we recommend Installing the HotDoc Sidebar sending these instructions through to your IT to complete How to install the HotDoc Sidebar on Practitioners workstations.
  
  

• Please note: Once you've gone live with Quick Consults any practitioner with status pending or active with either prescriptions or referrals selected, will begin receiving requests via email.
  
  

  If they are still pending, when a request comes through and they click to view the request the will be prompted to create a password before being able to action the request.
  
  

• We recommended checking your HotDoc Dashboard regularly for pending requests in the Quick Consults > Requests section, just in case any issues arise with receiving emails or if practitioners cannot access the Sidebar. Please see How to view repeat script and referral requests in the HotDoc Dashboard for more. 
  
  

• In Quick Consults > Settings > General, you have the ability to temporarily disable requests and add a message for patients to see during periods your practice may be closed or unable to accept online repeat requests. See How to temporarily disable online script or referral requests for more information.
  
• You also have the ability to check your settings and review the patient's experience, by heading to Quick Consults > Settings and scrolling down to the Visit your Quick Consults site.
  • It's also possible to provide these links to your website developer so they can add a button to your practice's website to direct patients to the page:
    
    

6. Educate your team

Educate your team and ensure they are ready for online Quick Consults requests!

• Please ensure they are familiar with these guides: 
  • HotDoc Repeats - The Patient Journey - To view the patient experience
    
  • How to set up Practitioners to action repeat requests in the Sidebar - If you need to set up more practitioners, after you have gone live
  • What practitioner’s need to do when actioning repeat requests in the Sidebar - Send this helpful guide directly to your doctors! 
    
  • How do I set up or edit Quick Consults request types? - To set up or edit your request types, pricing, or terms and conditions,
  • How to set up or edit your Quick Consults settings in the Dashboard - To edit the general and advanced settings in the 'Settings' tab
  • How to view repeat script and referral requests in the HotDoc Dashboard - To view all your requests 
    
  • How do I reconcile my HotDoc payments to the receipts in my practice software? & How do I use Payments Reporting to reconcile payouts to my bank account? for your reporting and reconciliation needs. 
    
  • How do I reassign a Quick Consult request to another practitioner? - For both practitioners and admin staff
    
    
• Access our free digital and printable marketing resources at your practice to educate your patients about quick consults: https://practices.hotdoc.com.au/resources/quick-consults/ 
  
  
• Make sure your reception team are notified about using Quick Consults for requests like prescriptions or medical certificates, before going live, so they can assist with educating your patients if there are questions.