> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rxscale.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Scheduled appointments
> How scheduled video appointments work from the doctor's perspective
# Scheduled appointments
When your organisation enables patient self-booking, patients pick a time slot directly from a
hosted booking page. The appointment is held in your calendar as soon as they confirm. This page
explains how scheduled appointments work from your perspective.
## How an appointment reaches your calendar
1. The patient lands on the hosted booking page (linked from your partner's site) and chooses a
time slot during one of your published availability windows.
2. Your slot is briefly held (typically 15 minutes) while the patient completes the booking flow.
3. The patient confirms. The appointment moves to `confirmed` and is reserved for you.
4. If the patient does not confirm in time, the hold expires and the slot becomes bookable again.
## Where to see your appointments
Open the **Appointments** entry in the sidebar to see every appointment scheduled with you. The
default view shows your upcoming confirmed appointments; you can filter by status (confirmed,
cancelled, expired, completed, no-show) or by date range to dig into history. Slots that a patient
is still in the middle of booking are never shown — only confirmed appointments reach your list.
Each row has an **Open patient** shortcut that jumps straight to the patient's record. The patient
record also includes a **Scheduled appointments** card so you can review that patient's appointment
history and record an outcome without leaving the detail screen. Use the table headers to sort by
appointment type, status, start time, or end time.
If the patient entered a reason while booking, it appears in the appointment list and the patient's
scheduled appointments card.
Your **home dashboard** also shows a **Today's appointments** card listing the appointments still
to come today. Confirmed appointments on that card include a **Join** action, and the top bar shows
a live countdown to your next appointment — click it to open that patient.
## Joining the video call
Each scheduled appointment maps to a persistent meeting room linked to you. You always land in
the same room for the same patient on the same day, regardless of the booking flow they used.
Use the **Meeting** entry in the sidebar to enter your persistent room. Cross-reference your
upcoming **Appointments** list to see who you're meeting next.
Click the join button. Your browser will request camera and microphone access.
The patient joins through their own join link. If they're not there yet, you'll see the
waiting room.
### Join window
You can open the room from **10 minutes before** the appointment starts until **60 minutes after**
the scheduled end time. Outside that window the join action is disabled.
This window covers normal cases:
* Patient arrives early → you join early and wait.
* Consultation overruns slightly → you stay in the room past the scheduled end.
* Patient is late by up to an hour → you can still meet without rescheduling.
For longer delays, ask the patient to rebook or coordinate with support.
## Cancellations
You can cancel an appointment from its detail page when something prevents the consultation from
happening (you're unavailable, the patient asks to cancel, etc.). A reason is required so support
and the patient understand what happened.
If the patient cancels from their side, the appointment status changes to `cancelled` and it
drops out of your active list.
## Recording the outcome
After a consultation you record how it went so the appointment doesn't stay open. When you leave
the video call, you're prompted to mark the appointment as **Completed** or **No-show** and add
optional notes. The notes are saved to the patient's meeting history; mark a note **internal** to
keep it from being shared with the patient.
If you skip the prompt or close the call window without leaving the call cleanly, the appointment
keeps a **Needs outcome** flag on your appointments list with a **Record outcome** action so you
can set it later. You can also correct an outcome you already recorded (for example switch a
no-show back to completed) using the same action.
Use **No-show** when the patient does not join within the join window — it's used for billing and
reporting and is distinct from a cancellation.
## Availability windows
Your bookable hours live under the **Availability** entry in the sidebar. Each window is a
recurring weekly slot (e.g. Monday 09:00 – 11:00) during which patients can book you. From the
availability page you can:
* **Add a window.** Choose a day, a start time and end time (entered as a time of day, e.g. 09:00),
and an optional buffer between consecutive slots.
* **Edit a window.** Change its times or toggle it off without deleting — useful for temporary
pauses.
* **Remove a window.** Soft-deletes the rule; patients will stop seeing slots in that block.
Validity periods (`valid_from` / `valid_until`) can be applied when you need a rule to apply only
for a date range; contact support if you need help wiring those up.
### Date overrides (specific dates)
Recurring windows cover your normal week, but some days are different. Under **Specific date
schedules** on the same availability page you can override a single calendar date without touching
your weekly rules:
* **Custom hours for a date.** Pick the date and set a start/end time (and optional buffer). On that
date, only these hours are bookable — your recurring windows for that weekday are ignored.
* **Mark a day off.** Pick the date and toggle **Day off**. That date becomes fully unavailable, even
if a recurring window normally applies.
* **Edit or remove an override.** Removing it returns the date to your recurring availability.
You can add more than one window to the same date (e.g. a morning and an afternoon block) by adding
two overrides for that date.
## Frequently asked questions
Slots that a patient is still booking are briefly held (status `held`) and are never shown in
your appointments. Once the patient confirms, the appointment appears as `confirmed`. If they
don't confirm in time, the hold expires and the slot returns to your availability.
The hold + confirm flow prevents this in normal operation. If you ever see it, contact support
— they can re-allocate one of the patients without losing the booking history.
Yes — the cancellation reason is shown on the appointment detail page.
## Related Topics
* [Video Meetings](/for-doctors/video-meetings) — General information on running video consultations.
* [Getting Started](/for-doctors/getting-started) — Doctor portal basics.