Cancelling appointments

[jarkkok]

I'm able to confirm appointments using PUT, for example: https://api.opendental.com/api/v1/appoi ... 63/Confirm with body {"confirmVal":"Confirm"}. Querying appointment status show the status as Confirmed. I can use some other statuses in confirmVal as well.

What would be the way to cancel an appointment through the API? I haven't found a suitable confirmVal for that.

[SLeon]

The Confirmed field is tied to the eServices Automated Messaging feature, if the office has set that up. More information can be found here https://opendental.com/manual/confirmationstatus.html.

Currently the API does not support cancelling an appointment, only rescheduling, but we can look into this.

[SLeon]

The method Appointments PUT Confirm has been recently expanded to support all appointment confirmation statuses. This will allow you to set the status to "Broken" to indicate a cancellation, or to any other ApptConfirm status the office has setup, via a defNum.

The original confirmVal field is used by offices with eServices Automated Messaging set up and want to use those statuses instead. More information on this method can be found on our updated documentation https://www.opendental.com/resources/OpenDentalAPI.pdf.

[jarkkok]

I'm missing something with setting appointment to Status broken. The API document mentions use of confirmVal and defNum, but those seems to impact only Confirmed status in the application (and in the REST responses). Status stays Scheduled although Broken is available in the application. I tried feeding Status in the PUT but that didn't help.

[SLeon]

I apologize for the misunderstanding. The AptStatus field can be used to change the status of the appointment to "Broken". This can be done with the Appointments PUT method. I will update our documentation to give more details on this and other fields for that method.

[jarkkok]

No problem. Thank you for the update.

[SLeon]

Along with changing the AptStatus to "Broken", multiple things can occur when an appointment is broken in Open Dental. For example, certain procedure codes can be added to the appointment. These options are set up by the dental office.

Because more than just the AptStatus of the appointment is affected, we are discouraging the use of Appointments PUT to indicate a broken appointment. Instead we will create a new API method, Appointments PUT Break, that will handle all aspects of breaking an appointment. Development on this will start immediately.

[jordansparks]

https://www.opendental.com/manual/apptbreak.html
There are 3 reasons to break an appointment:
1. Missed, no show
2. Less than 24 hrs notice
3. Plenty of notice.
The first 2 get procedure codes entered because you generally want to charge the patient. The third one isn't really what I would think of as a broken appointment. It's more of just a cancellation. I think it would be nice if we include cancellation as one of our options on this method. And I think that's actually the one that will get used the most. I think it would naturally go to the Unscheduled List in that case. I think all three would include a CommLog note.

[jarkkok]

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.

[SLeon]

The new method Appointments PUT Break is complete. This is the only way appointments should be marked as "Broken" through the API. It will be available in our next beta version (21.3.22) which is estimated to be released later this week.

Please see our updated documentation for more information on this new method https://www.opendental.com/resources/OpenDentalAPI.pdf.

[jordansparks]

This also handles my situation #3 above, which I think will be by far the most common use of this method. So no fee charged for breaking the appointment, and the appointment goes to the unscheduled list where it can easily be found for later rescheduling.