Public clients are individual clients that may make an appointment or bring their animals into the clinic. This section will show you how to set up spay/neuter appointments for this type of client internally in HQ. This page previews the client and animal details, which are the basis of any s/n appointment.
Making Public Client Appointments
To begin a public spay/neuter appointment in HQ, you have two options:
Start at the calendar
- Click on Spay/Neuter by Capacities in the left hand menu.
- Click on the date you’d like to make an appointment.
- Click Make Spay/Neuter Appointment.
Start at the Quick Search menu
- Click Ctrl + K on your keyboard or the Quick Search bar in the left hand menu.
- Click the Make Appointment button in the Spay/Neuter box.
- This will jump you to the main calendar; you will then need to click on the date that you would like to make the spay/neuter appointment and select make spay/neuter appointment.
Understanding Client Details – New Client
On Step 1 – Client Information page, by default, Public Client is selected. Here are what the following fields mean:
- First Name: This is a required field.
- Last Name: This is a required field.
- Cell Phone: Either cell phone or home phone is required. It is advantageous to ask for a cell phone because then you can text back and forth with the client.
- Home Phone: either a home phone or a cell phone is required. Many clinics use this field as a backup field for a cell phone.
- Email: it is required to enter an email or to take the tick box that says no email available. This lets everyone on staff know that you did ask for an email, but none was available. Many things in Clinic HQ are tied to an email, including the consent and E-pay. Also, appointment confirmations, reminders, and receipts.
- Client Address: This is a required field. It connects to an API that looks up the address as you begin to type. If the address is not found, you can click the +Enter Custom Address field and type in any string of text to input the address.
- Additional Address Information: This is where you insert an apartment number.
The address field is required when making an appointment. It’s the most complex and, therefore, time-consuming piece of information you will collect from the client. A key strategy is to disperse data entry between when you make the appointment and checkout. By requiring it here, we alleviate the need to do it at checkout.
Addresses are geocoded at the moment you input them. They are then presented in the Reports > Geographic Metrics map when the animal is checked out.
A note on physical addresses versus PO Boxes
Usually, municipalities require a physical address on the patient’s medical record and especially on the rabies certificate. Additionally, if the animal is microchipped, it’s useful to register the animal under their physical address, not a PO Box. On some Native American reservations, it may not be possible to enter a physical address for the client. It may be necessary to enter a PO Box. This is doable in the custom address field. Furthermore, if a client is homeless and does not have an address, use the last known address of where the client stayed long term. This is how the federal government often handles this kind of situation, and it provides some guidance here.
- +Add Client Quick Notes: A quick note is a private note about this client. This note is not printed anywhere. It is displayed when you are making subsequent appointments for this client. It’s displayed on the pop-up that lets you know the client already exists in your database. Clinics use this field to indicate things like the client owes money or is banned from making appointments. Although, a client tag is also very useful for these kinds of observations. The client note is also displayed in the upper right corner under Client Quick Note.
How to Book a Previous Client
If this client has already been to your clinic, they will be in your database. When you type in their name or any of the other pieces of information, you will see a pop-up with the suggested client’s information. Click the pop-up to select the client. If it’s the wrong client, simply click the Cancel button, and a new client will be created.
If you select the client, it will pull in all the previous contact information for the owner.
Understanding Animal Information Fields
Once all client information is entered, it’s time to enter animal information. You can either click the Animal Information button at the bottom or the Step 2- Animal Information link up top. The required fields have an asterisk next to them. However, it will be a time-saver at checkout if you take the time while making the appointment to collect all this data.
- Animal Name: Required field. If you know the client is a returning client, click Search Owned Animals to see if any of the pets pop up. If so, select the pet. If not, type in the pet’s name.
Scenarios that prevent you from making another spay/neuter appointment for this animal.
- If the animal already has a pre-existing, pending spay/neuter appointment.
- However, you will be able to make a spay/neuter appointment if this animal was previously declined for spay/neuter for any other reason than they have already been sterilized.
- Species / Sex: Required field. If the sex is unknown, as is the case with feral cats, simply input as a female since this type of surgery takes the most surgical time. You’ll change the sex in checkout to the real sex of the animal.
- Age: When entering age during scheduling, set this as the current age. When doing the exam on the visit date, update animal and change the age if this age is no longer current. Because appointments can be rescheduled for later or sooner, setting the age the animal will be could will ultimately be very confusing for your clinic. As people make appointments online, there is no spot that says – What age WILL your animal be WHEN your appointment arrives. Since the vast majority of appointments are made online, most of the ages on the HQ screens reflect the age the pet was when the owner made the appointment. If you were to input some appointments reflecting the age they will be, and many appointments reflecting the age they were when the appointment was made, this would be extremely confusing for all involved. It is also not recommended to input a date of birth in notes. It’s a time waster to ask for and input this information. For the majority of animals that come through HQ, the history of the animals is not known. To ask for a dob, and then take the time to input a dob, which may or may not be accurate causes unnecessary friction in your flow. Upon exam, if the vet does not believe an animal is a certain age, right then and there is the time to update it in the screens.
- Colors: A primary color will be required before generating a rabies certificate or auto-registering a microchip. It is best to gather that information now.
- Weight: This field will only be required on this screen if you clinic utilizes weight-based Capacities. Type in an estimated weight.
- Breed: Required before generating a rabies certificate or auto-registering a microchip. It is best to gather that information now.
- Animal Type: This field is heavily tracked in statistics. Here you can select the ownership type such as Owned. If your calendar is restricted by Animal Type, this info will determine what tile they get placed in.
- Animal notes: This field does not require input. However, if there is something important to know about this animal, such as “allergic to penicillin,” this is the place for notes of that nature. This note will stick with the animal throughout the system and for future appointments.
- Appointment note: The animal note is different from an appointment note. An appointment note is something specifically for this appointment, such as “might be pregnant” or “possibly has ringworms.” It is not a fact that will always be true of the animal. Both the animal note and appointment note print (and are displayed) in many places in HQ.
- “Caution: This animal is anxious and/or has a potential to bite”: Marking this will put a red exclamation beside the animal name throughout the system. This will also add a note of caution to the Animal Notes to appear anywhere the animal note’s merge field is placed such as cage cards or consent forms.
- Marking cats in a Trap: In some cases, cats may be owned but cannot be handled. The checkbox for “Will this cat be in a trap?” allows you to mark owned, foster, shelter cats as arriving in a trap. A merge field for the trap indicator can be added to your custom templates. A flag labeled “Trap” will appear next to the animal in Patient Flow.
- +Add Services, Products & Discounts link on the right to add the services, products, and any discounts the client is requesting for their pet.
This is where you can add services to the menu. You can select a package or begin typing the name of the service, such as “r” for rabies. Once it comes up, click on the item name to add it to the list.
Once all services are added, you can double-check pricing and add discounts (in HQ, we also refer to any discount as a “subsidy”). You add a subsidy, like if the item is being covered by a grant, by clicking the green Discount button.
Note: Certain items are species-specific, like a Bordetella vaccine is for dogs only. You may not see all items on the list if that item is not for that particular species.
