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Administrative
Add and manage patients, manage appointments and manage transport.
Appointments
Use Communicare appointments to book future appointments and record services provided without an appointment, for example, walk-in patients.
Edit Appointments or Sessions
Cancel appointment sessions, replace a session provider, or reschedule or cancel appointments.
Replace an Appointment Session Provider
Replace a provider for a manual or weekly session, all appointments within a date range or all appointments from a selected date.

Administrative
Add and manage patients, manage appointments and manage transport.
- Patients
  Communicare uses the term Patient to refer to the clients of a health service.
- Appointments
  Use Communicare appointments to book future appointments and record services provided without an appointment, for example, walk-in patients.
  - Working with the Appointment Book
    Use the Appointment Book to add sessions, book and change appointments, and check patient's in.
  - Book Appointments
    After you have configured your session templates and sessions have been inserted, either manually or automatically, you can book appointments.
  - Edit Appointments or Sessions
    Cancel appointment sessions, replace a session provider, or reschedule or cancel appointments.
    - Cancel and reschedule appointments manually
      You can cancel or reschedule one or more patients' appointments in the Appointment Book at any time before the consultation starts.
    - Cancel an Appointment Session
      You can cancel a session or part of session if required.
    - Replace an Appointment Session Provider
      Replace a provider for a manual or weekly session, all appointments within a date range or all appointments from a selected date.
  - Checking a patient in
    In the Appointment Book, you can manage an appointment's progress: you can check in a patient when they arrive for their appointment and then monitor the progress of that patient through your health service during their appointment.
  - Simultaneous Check-In
    The Simultaneous Check-In window is displayed when checking in a patient who has more than one appointment today. It allows patients with multiple appointments to be efficiently managed through services with multiple providers.
  - Walk-in patients
    Walk-in patients are those who arrive without an appointment. That is, they just walk in.
  - Patient Appointment and Service History
    From the Appointment Book or clinical record, use the Service List window to view a list of all upcoming appointments for a patient, and a patient's appointment and service history.
  - Appointment Book report
    Use the Appointment Book report to print the appointments book in a format that can be used in an emergency as a paper appointments book. It is also useful when reviewing the setup of the appointments book.
  - SMS Messages and Reminders
    In Communicare V21.1 and later, you can send appointment reminders to patients using Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Messaging) and a new interface.
  - SMS Messaging Using Burst
    Set up SMS messaging so that your health service can send SMS messages to patients using Burst.
- Transport
  Communicare offers two ways of managing transport services.

Replace an Appointment Session Provider

Replace a provider for a manual or weekly session, all appointments within a date range or all appointments from a selected date.

To change an appointment session's provider:

In the Appointment Book, right-click in the session you want to reassign and select Replace Provider.
In the Provider Substitution window, from the with list, select an alternative provider.
In the Substitution Period list, select how many sessions you want to substitute. Choose from:
- This session only - the provider is substituted for this session only.
- All appointments from today onwards - the provider is substituted for this and all future sessions.
- Date range - the provider is substituted for the selected date range.
Click OK.
Confirm the substitution.

The selected provider is substituted for the original provider for the session or period specified, or until the horizon date if you selected all appointments from today onwards.

The session template is not affected by changes you make in the sessions; the provider for the session template is unchanged.

16 February 2026