Rescheduling an appointment
Move a booking to a new time, dentist, or room without losing patient history.
Overview
Rescheduling preserves the appointment's identity and history while updating its time, dentist, room, or location. The patient's notification reflects the change. Best practice: reschedule rather than cancel-and-recreate, so the audit trail stays linked.
Prerequisites
- Any clinical or front-desk role
- The appointment exists and isn't already completed
Steps
Find the appointment. Open Appointments calendar, navigate to the relevant day. Or open the patient's profile → Appointments tab.
Click the appointment card. A modal opens with appointment details and actions.
Click "Reschedule". This opens the rescheduling form pre-filled with the current values.
Pick the new date and time. Available slots appear in the time grid; conflicts are dimmed. Choose one.
Optionally change the dentist. If the patient now needs a specialist, switch dentists. The room field updates to show only rooms equipped for the new dentist's appointment type.
Optionally change the room or location. Multi-location clinics: switch location if the patient is being seen elsewhere.
Add a reason. Required text — "Patient requested earlier", "Dentist sick leave", "Equipment maintenance". Appears in the audit log and the patient's notification.
Click "Save changes". A success toast appears. The card moves on the calendar to the new slot. The patient receives a reschedule notification (SMS / email if reminders enabled).
Verify the patient was notified. Open the Communications tab on the patient profile. The reschedule SMS/email should appear within a minute.
Expected outcome
- The appointment's
scheduledAt, dentist, room, location fields update; theidis unchanged - An audit log entry records the change with old and new values, plus your reason
- The patient receives a notification on configured channels
- Old slot frees up; new slot is reserved
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Reschedule button missing | Appointment is already COMPLETED or CANCELLED | Cannot reschedule; create a new appointment instead |
| New slot rejected | Conflict with another booking | Pick a different slot |
| Patient didn't get the notification | appointment_reminders flag off, or patient has no phone/email | Verify in Settings → Communications that reminders are on |
| Multi-day reschedule rejected | Some clinics block reschedules less than 4 hours before | Check Settings → Appointment Rules; override needs Admin |
| Drag-and-drop reschedule didn't save | Network glitch | Re-drop the card; check the toast |