Patent Application
20200143938
The present invention relates generally to methods and systems that facilitate the scheduling of medical appointments, and more particularly to methods and systems that can be used by patients to make on-demand medical appointments with a variety of medical professionals, such as physicians and dentists.
Each year, patients schedule millions of appointments with medical professionals. Such appointments are made typically well in advance, e.g., a few months in advance. In many cases, a patient may be not be able to attend a previously scheduled appointment, e.g., due to a family emergency or otherwise. Although the patient may notify the medical professional of her inability to keep the appointment, such notification may be provided only a short time, e.g., 24 hours or less, prior to the scheduled appointment. Such short notices can hamper the ability of the medical professional to schedule appointments for other patients in the time slots that have become available due to missed appointments. Such missed appointments can result in loss of revenue. In fact, some data suggests that missed medical appointments cost the U.S. healthcare system about 150 billion dollars each year.
Further, a patient may need an appointment with a medical professional, for example, a family physician or a specialist, over a time period that is significantly less than the typical time periods during which the patient's own physician has available appointments. For example, a patient may desire to see a medical professional over the next 24 or 48 hours. Although many qualified medical professionals may have available time slots in which they can accommodate such a patient, the present systems do not allow facile connection of the patient with such medical professionals.
Accordingly, there is a need for methods and systems that can allow making medical appointments on-demand.
In one aspect, a system for scheduling medical appointments is disclosed, which comprises a scheduling server, implemented on a digital processor, that is configured to communicate with a plurality of patient devices associated with a plurality of patients and a plurality of physician devices associated with a plurality of physicians. The scheduling server can include a first module for receiving requests from the patient devices for information regarding at least one available physician having at least one available appointment time slot, a second module for receiving available patient appointment time slots from said plurality of physician devices, said second module storing information regarding said available appointment time slots, a third module in communication with said first module for searching said database in response to a request from at least one of said patient devices to identify one or more physicians and one or more available appointment time slots associated with said one or more physicians that satisfy said request, and a fourth module in communication with said third module for receiving information regarding said identified physicians and the respective available time slots from said third module and for transmitting said information to said at least one requesting patient device.
In some embodiments of the above system, each of the physician devices can include an appointment information module for communicating available appointment time slots to said scheduling server, and an appointment scheduling module for scheduling an appointment at a time slot selected by a patient.
Further, in some embodiments, each patient device can include a first module for communicating a patient's request for identifying at least one physician having at least one available appointment time slot within a desired temporal period to said scheduling server, said first module further configured for receiving information regarding available physicians and associated available appointment time slots from said scheduling server, and a graphical user interface (GUI) in communication with said first module for presenting said information regarding available physicians and associated available time slots to the patient. In some embodiments, each of the patient devices can further include a second module in communication with said GUI to receive a patient's selection of an available physician and a respective available time slot and to communicate said selection to said scheduling server.
In some embodiments, the GUI employs a graphical element for presenting the information regarding available physicians to the patient. In some embodiments, the graphical element presents a boundary line circumscribing an area within a maximum distance from an address provided by the user of the system, such as a patient (e.g., patient's residential address). In some such embodiments, the graphical element can further present one or more icons within the area circumscribed by the boundary indicative of one or more physicians that have available appointment time slots. In some such embodiments, each icon can be presented at a distance from the address (e.g., the patient's address) that is proportional to an actual distance of the address of the presented physician from the patient's address.
In some embodiments, each icon is configured such that its selection can result in the presentation of information regarding the physician associated with that icon to the patient. In some embodiments, the GUI can superimpose a map on the circumscribed area and mark the patient's address and one or more addresses of said one or more physicians on that map.
In a related aspect, a computer-implemented method of scheduling medical appointments is disclosed, which comprises using at least one digital data processor to perform the following steps: receiving at least one request from at least one patient device for information regarding at least one available physician having at least one available appointment time slot, receiving from one or more physician devices information regarding one or more available appointment time slots associated with said one or more physicians, comparing said available appointment time slots with said patient-requested time slot to determine if any of the available appointment time slots satisfies the patient's request, and presenting at least one available appointment time slot satisfying the patient's request, if any, to the patient.
In some embodiments of the above method, the received one or more available time slots correspond to appointment time slots made available via patient cancellation.
In a related aspect, a computer-implemented system for scheduling medical appointments, which comprise a scheduling system comprising a digital data processor for receiving at least one request from a patient for a medical appointment with a medical professional at a selected date and time interval, an information-receiving system comprising a digital data processor and configured for receiving information regarding one or more physicians having available appointment time slots at said selected date and time interval and communicating said information to the scheduling system, where said scheduling system presents said available appointment time slots to said patient.
Further understanding of various aspects of the present teachings can be obtained by reference to the following detailed description in conjunction with the associated drawings, which are described briefly below.
The present invention discloses generally methods and systems for scheduling medical appointments on-demand. As discussed in more detail below, a patient device can include a patient client application (herein also referred to as an “patient app”) that allows the patient to communicate with a scheduling server, which stores up-to-date information regarding available medical appointments, to request scheduling a medical appointment. By way of example, in some embodiments, to request an appointment, the patient can launch the patient app, which presents a map to the patient indicating the patient's location and the location of nearby physicians (or other medical professionals) who have available appointments within a defined time period (e.g., a time period extending from the time the patient launches the app to the next 24 hours). In some cases, the patient client app presents all nearby physicians and in other cases nearby physicians satisfying certain criteria, e.g., physicians having a selected specialty, e.g., all nearby dermatologists, are presented, e.g., based on the patient's preferences. In some embodiments, the nearby physicians are those who are located at a distance less than a predefined maximum distance from the patient's location. Such a maximum distance can be set by the patient, or can be a default maximum distance employed by the patient app.
As discussed in more detail below, in some aspects, a system according to the present invention provides an improved scheduling system having a subsystem that allows leveraging patient cancellations associated with a medical practice to provide a medical appointment marketplace that allows substantially real-time scheduling of medical appointments. In this respect, the present invention is an improvement to the technical aspects of a processor-based system for scheduling medical appointments.
The term “patient” is used herein broadly to refer to a user of a system according to the present teachings. In many instances, such a user can be a patient seeking medical advice. In other cases, the user may not be a patient. For example, a user of the system can be an individual who is searching for medical professional on behalf of a patient.
In some embodiments, in order to use the system according to the present teachings, a patient may be required to have a valid health insurance or agree to pay all the incurred costs. In some embodiments, a patient can sign up with the patient client application by providing certain information, such as, social securing number (SSN), health insurance and credit card information, as well as providing consent for utilizing the system. In some embodiments, the patient can also enter preliminary medical/health information into the patient client application. In some embodiments, a scheduling server in communication with the patient client application can assign a unique identification to the patient. Further, in some such embodiments, the scheduling server can communicate with an electronic health system (EHR), with the patient's consent, to download health information regarding the patient, such as clinical reports, biochemical and imaging tests, etc. The scheduling server can then be utilized by the patient or a physician (or other medical professional) with whom the patient has an appointment to access such health data.
Further, in some embodiments, a physician can utilize a system according to the present teachings to receive requests for medical appointments only if the physician has a valid medical license for practicing medicine in the state in which the physician practices as well as a valid malpractice insurance. In some embodiments, a physician seeking to participate in an on-demand appointment service according to the present teachings will be required to submit such information, and optionally other information (e.g., whether the physician has been disciplined by a state medical board). If the physician passes a minimum set of requirements, the physician can be assigned a unique identification to participate in the on-demand appointment service according to the present teachings. In some embodiments, a system according to the present teachings allows a physician to indicate physician's preferences for scheduling appointments. For example, a physician may indicate that she/he is or is not available for visiting patients at their homes. In addition or alternatively, the physician can provide information regarding her/his medical specialty, number of years in practice, insurance plans that the physician accepts, languages spoken, the address of the medical facility at which the physician practices, etc. As discussed in more detail below, the scheduling server can employ such physician information to build a profile of the physician.
As noted above, in response to a patient's request, the patient can be presented with one or more physicians (or other medical professionals). The patient can select one of the presented physicians (or other medical professionals), e.g., by clicking on an icon representing that physician. In some embodiments, in response to the selection of a physician, the patient client app will present the following information regarding the selected physician to the patient: name, gender, specialty, years in practice, rating, the fee, acceptable insurance plans, and the office address (for in-office physicians), and languages spoken.
In some embodiments, a patient can sort the list of physicians based on the above-mentioned information. For example, the patient client app can allow the patient to sort the presented physicians based on the years in practice.
In some embodiments, the patient can select the date/time for an appointment, and the patient client app can present those physicians having available appointment during the selected date/time to the patient.
The patient can then use the client patient app to request an appointment (e.g., a visiting or an in-office) appointment with one of the physicians (or other medical professionals) having an available appointment. In some embodiments, the patient can request an appointment with a specific physician (or other medical professional) or simply make a request for a physician (or other medical professional) having an available appointment time slot and allow the client patient app to choose a physician (e.g., based on the patient's stated preferences, such as years in practice, proximity to the patient's location, etc.). The client physician app can send the appointment request to the scheduling server, which will in turn communicate with a device associated with the requested physician to request an appointment for the patient. In some embodiments in which the patient has not requested a specific physician, but rather has made a general request for an appointment, the scheduling server can send the request to a plurality of physicians, for example, those that satisfy certain criteria, such as preferences defined by the patient.
In some embodiments, a physician (or physicians) receiving the request, can view, for example, the name, the medical condition, the insurance information and the address of the requesting patient. To accept a request, a physician who has received an appointment request can accept or reject the requesting appointment. In some embodiments, a request for an in-office visit is automatically accepted (if the appointment slot is still available) while a request for a visiting appointment (e.g., a visit at the patient's house) may be accepted or rejected. As discussed in more detail below, a physician (or other medical professional) can employ a physician client application (herein also referred to as a “physician client app”) to accept or reject an appointment. A notice regarding the acceptance or rejection of an appointment is then transmitted to the scheduling server, which can in turn inform the patient, and more particularly, the patient client app, of the acceptance or rejection of the requested appointment.
Various embodiments discussed below provide further understanding of various aspects of the present teachings. It should be understood that although in many embodiments, various features of the present invention are discussed in connection with scheduling medical appointments with physicians, the present invention can be employed for scheduling appointments with other medical professionals, such as dentists, nurse practitioners, speech therapists, physical therapists, etc.
For example, as discussed in more detail below, the system 10 can allow a physician to present available appointment time slots within the next 24 or 48 hours to a plurality of patients and allow those patients to choose one or more of the time slots to schedule appointments. In this manner, the physician can fill the available time slot(s), e.g., those associated with canceled appointments, and the patients are presented with the opportunity to schedule appointments on demand.
The system 10 includes a plurality of devices 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d, 12e (herein collectively referred to as “patient devices 12”) each of which is associated with a patient. As discussed in more detail below, a patient can employ a patient device 12 to schedule medical appointments on demand. Although for ease of illustration, only a few patient devices are shown, it should be understood that a system according to the present teachings is scalable for use by any number of patients. The patient device 12 can be any suitable device, e.g., a mobile device, such as a portable phone, a computer, e.g., a tablet, an iPad, a desktop, or any other device capable of communicating with a scheduling server, via a messaging network (e.g., the Internet), according to the present teachings.
The system 10 further includes a plurality of devices 14a, 14b, 14c, 14d, 14e associated with participating medical professionals (e.g., physicians, dentists, chiropractors, podiatrists, optometrists, etc.), which are herein referred to as “physician devices 14”. Each physician device can be associated with a physician (or any other medical professional, such as a dentist), and/or a physician's or other medical professional's practice, and/or an organization, such as a hospital, with which the physician or the medical professional is associated.
As discussed in more detail below, the physician devices can communicate with the patient devices, e.g., via a messaging network, to allow the scheduling of appointments. Again, although for the ease of illustration, only a few physician devices are shown, a system according to the present teachings can accommodate any number of physician devices.
More particularly, as shown in
With reference to
In this embodiment, the patient client program 1 allows a patient to register with the system and can further allow the patient to build a patient profile. By way of example, the patient client program 1 can present a graphical user interface (GUI) to the patient, which the patient can employ to interact with the client program 1, e.g., to register and compile his/her profile. By way of example, once the client program is launched, it can present an interface such as that depicted in
Once a new patient chooses the registration option, the patient client program can present a questionnaire to the patient that allows the patient to input patient data, e.g., biographical data. As shown schematically in
Referring to
Referring again to
Further, each physician client application (program) 3 can communicate with the scheduling server 16, and more specifically with the scheduling server program 2, to provide the scheduling server with information regarding available appointment time slots for that physician. As noted above, in some cases, these appointment time slots can correspond to appointments that have been canceled by one or more patients and in other cases they can correspond to appointment time slots that have not been yet filled.
As shown schematically in
The appointment information module 3b can then communicate information regarding the available appointment time slots to the scheduling server 16, and more specifically to the scheduling server program 2, which can in turn store the information in the database 5. As discussed below, the scheduling server 16 can use this information in response to a patient's request for scheduling an appointment to present available options to that patient.
With continued reference to
Alternatively, a user, e.g., a physician's assistant, can manually enter the information regarding the available appointment time slots, e.g., canceled appointment(s), into the appointment information module 3b, which can in turn transmit the information to the scheduling server 16. For example, such a user can employ a user interface unit 3d of the physician's device 14 to enter information regarding the canceled appointment(s), e.g., date and time of the canceled appointment(s), into the appointment information module 3b.
For example, as shown in
Although in some embodiments, the functionality of a system according to the present teachings is described in the context of canceled appointments, more generally, a system according to the present teachings can be employed to match a patient seeking a medical appointment with a physician having an appointment time slot meeting the patient's criteria, whether that appointment time slot is available due to a cancellation or not, e.g., the appointment slot may not have been filled in the first instance.
A patient can employ a patient device 12 to submit a scheduling request to the scheduling server program 2 executing on the scheduling server 16. In response to the received scheduling request, the scheduling server, and more specifically, the scheduling server program 2, can consult the database 5 to identify one or more physicians (or other medical professionals) that have available appointments that satisfy the scheduling request submitted by the patient.
Referring to
More specifically, in this embodiment, the scheduling server 16 is in communication with a plurality of physicians devices 14a, 14b, 14c, 14d, 14e (herein referred to collectively as “physician devices”), each of which is associated with a physician and/or a physician's practice, and/or an organization, such as a hospital, with which the physician is associated. By way of example, in this embodiment, the scheduling server 16 can communicate with the physician devices via a messaging network, such as the Internet, though other modes of communication can also be employed.
By way of example, with reference to
By way of example, as shown in
In some embodiments, the GUI can also allow the patient to identify the maximum distance of the physician's office from the patient. For example and only for illustrative purposes, we assume that the date at which the patient lodges the request is Aug. 23, 2018 and the patient is seeking to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist on Aug. 24, 2018. It should be understood that similar features can be used to search for other medical professionals, such as, dentists, physical therapists, etc. In some embodiments, the GUI can present a pull-down menu to the patient, which the patient can employ to select the type of medical professional, e.g., a physician or a dentist, with whom the patient would like to schedule an appointment. Further, in some embodiments, for each medical profession, the patient can be presented with sub-specialties from which the patient can make a selection.
As shown in
Further, in some embodiments, the patient may be provided with the option, or alternatively be required, to provide his/her symptoms while requesting scheduling an appointment with a medical professional. For example, with reference to
With reference to
The patient client application executing on the patient device can in turn effect the presentation of this information via a display of the patient device to the requesting patient. For example, with reference to
In this embodiment, under each icon, a link to the physician's website as well as the available appointment time slots for that physician are provided.
The patient can select one of the two dermatologists and request scheduling an appointment, e.g., by clicking the available appointment time slot. The patient client program can then transmit the patient's request for scheduling an appointment to the scheduling server application 2 executing on the scheduling server 16. A module 2e for scheduling appointments executing on the scheduling server can receive the request and can determine, via communication with the database 5, whether the appointment slot is still available. If the selected time slot is available, the program module 2e can communicate with the appointment scheduling module 3d executing on the dermatologist's physician client application (See,
The module 2e can also send a confirmation notice to the requesting patient's device. For example, the module 2e can send the confirmation notice to the appointment scheduling module 1c executing on the patient's device, which can employ the graphical user interface of the requesting patient's device to present the confirmation notice to the patient.
In some embodiments, the system allows a patient seeking an appointment to filter the physicians who have available appointment time slots based on the maximum distance from a selected location, e.g., a patient's residence, to the medical facility at which the physicians practice. For example, as discussed above and as shown in
The scheduling server 16 can then transmit information regarding the physicians whose availability and distance fit the criteria selected by the patient to the patient client application. For example,
In some embodiments, the system can employ a default maximum address to filter the physicians who have available appointment time slots. For example, the default maximum address can be about 20 miles from a patient's residential address, which the patient had previously provided in registering with the system.
In some other embodiments, the system can filter the medical professionals (e.g., physicians) presented to a patient seeking an appointment based on the patient's insurance plan and whether or not a physician is within the network of the patient's insurance plan. As discussed above, in many embodiments, a patient provides the system with information regarding the patient's insurance plan when the patient registers with the system, e.g., in a manner discussed above.
Upon receiving an appointment request from the patient, the server program filters the physicians who have available time slots fulfilling the patient's criteria based on whether those physicians accept the patient's insurance plan. For example, in some embodiments, the scheduling server 16 provides the requesting patient with information regarding only those physicians who accept the patient's insurance plan.
In some embodiments, if a patient's request for an appointment with a medical professional, e.g., a physician, within a selected time period cannot be fulfilled because no appointment time slots are available, the system can provide the patient with the option of requesting a notification when a time slot becomes available, e.g., a notification as soon as a time slot becomes available. By way of example, in some such embodiments, the client program may present a message to the patient such as that shown indicating that no appointment slots are available that would satisfy the criteria provided by the patient. Further, the patient client application can provide the patient with the option of requesting a notification when an appointment slot becomes available. If the patient requests such a notification, the patient client application can transmit the patient's request to the scheduling server and the scheduling server program can provide such a notification to the client program once an appointment slot becomes available.
In a related aspect, a system according to the present teachings can allow patients to request in-house visits. For example, upon registration with the system, a physician (or other medical professional) can indicate whether she/he is available for in-house visits. In some such embodiments, the patient client application can provide a patient with the option of requesting an in-house visit. For example, the patient client program can present a tab labeled “In-house Visit,” which a patient can select to request an in-house visit. Upon selecting the “In-house Visit” tab, the patient client application can provide, for example, a pull-down menu (such as that shown in
In some embodiments, a patient scheduling system according to the present teachings can be configured to provide priority to certain patient population before presenting the available appointment time slots to a wider group of patients. By way of example, the system can initially post available time slots to a physician's or other medical professional's own patients, e.g., those on a waiting list for obtaining an appointment, and then after a given time period, e.g., a few hours, make those appointment slots available to the general population.
By way of example, a physician device can transmit, e.g., on a periodic basis (e.g., on daily basis), a list of patients to the scheduling server for whom priority scheduling is required. The scheduling server can associate the information regarding those patients with that physician and store that information in the database 5. In some such embodiments, the scheduling server will present the available appointment time slots only to the priority patients during a specified time period, e.g., a few hours. After the termination of the specified time period, the scheduling server can present the available time slots to other patients.
The physician device can update the list of priority patients and available time slots. For example, when a patient may call a physician's office directly to make an appointment, if an appointment is made, the physician device can update the available appointment time slots and send the updated information to the scheduling server. The scheduling server can in turn update the database 5 accordingly.
Any of the scheduling server as well as the physician and patient client applications can be implemented on a digital processor using hardware, firmware and/or software in a manner known in the art as informed by the present teachings. By way of example,
Those having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that various changes can be made to the above embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application 62/755,851, filed Nov. 5, 2018. The entire contents of this application are incorporated by reference herein.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62755851 | Nov 2018 | US |
