Consultations Without an Assigned Doctor
Not every consultation is tied to a named doctor at the point it is booked — a walk-in dressing, an injection, or a review taken by whoever is on duty. MetahOS can book and bill these without selecting a doctor.
At a glance
fa-user | Patient arrives | Someone walks in needing a service.
fa-shopping-cart | Book the consultation | The consultation line is added with no doctor set.
fa-money | Bill it | The bill is raised as normal.
fa-user-md | Doctor attends | Whoever sees the patient is recorded at that point.
fa-file-text-o | Notes saved | The consultation is attributed to the attending doctor.
Booking without a doctor
Where the site allows it, the doctor field on a consultation line can be left empty. The line is booked, priced and billed exactly as a normal consultation.
On the bill, a consultation line with no doctor is labelled so that it is obvious the doctor is yet to be assigned, and is not silently grouped with another doctor's lines.
note
Consultation lines are grouped by doctor on the bill. A line with no doctor is kept separate, so adding two doctorless consultations does not merge them into one.
Who the consultation is attributed to
When the consultation notes are saved, the consultation is attributed to:
- The doctor assigned to it, if one was set; otherwise
- The doctor who is saving the notes.
So a consultation booked without a doctor is attributed to whoever actually attended the patient, at the moment they write it up — no back-filling required.
tip
This keeps doctor-earnings and activity reports accurate for walk-in services, where the attending doctor genuinely is not known until the patient is seen.
Slots
Consultation slots can likewise be defined without being tied to a specific doctor, so a general clinic session can be published and filled by whichever doctor covers it.