How to export your schedule from MacPractice

Two ways out of the schedule, and which one to use

MacPractice gives you two documented routes for getting appointments out of the system. The first is the Schedule Print window, opened from the Schedule Ability with File > Print or Command-P. The second is the Appointments Report in the Reports Ability.

The print window is designed for paper. It can show a Graphical (grid) view or a Text view that lists appointments in time order, and it has an Export to iCal button. That button saves an .ics file meant for the Mac's Calendar app. A calendar file is a poor fit for revenue work: it is hard to open as rows and columns, it scatters patient details across calendar events, and the HelpDesk notes that MacPractice Support cannot help with the import beyond its guide. It also puts appointment details into a personal calendar app, which is not where protected health information belongs.

For a file you can actually work with, use the Appointments Report. The rest of this guide focuses on it.

Step by step: the Appointments Report

The MacPractice HelpDesk places the Appointments Report in the Reports Ability, inside the Scheduling node, and describes the filters below. Here is the sequence:

1. Open the Reports Ability and expand the Scheduling node. Select Appointments.
2. Set the Appt. Sched. Start Date and End Date. The report finds appointments scheduled to occur between these dates.
3. Under Status, include your normal statuses plus Missed, Cancelled and To Reschedule.
4. Under Type and Resources, leave everything included for a first export, or narrow to the providers and rooms you care about.
5. Choose your columns on the report's tabs (covered in the next section).
6. Run the report, then export it as an Excel (.xls) or .txt file and save it to a secure practice folder.

Choosing columns on each tab

The Appointments Report groups its optional columns into tabs. The HelpDesk lists these, and it helps to decide on purpose which ones to turn on:

• Patient tab: Patient #, Chart #, Phone, Date of Birth, Age, Email. Keep Patient # and Phone. Patient # is the reliable way to match the same person across exports. Leave Date of Birth and Age off unless the task needs them.
• Appointment tab: Date, Status, Type, Resource, Provider, Notes, Created, Created By, Updated By, Last Updated. Keep Date, Status, Type, Resource and Provider. Leave Notes off; appointment notes are free text and can hold clinical details.
• Production tab: production and treatment amounts, balances and Treatment Plans. Useful for a one-time look at what missed appointments were worth, but not needed for a daily file.
• Online Scheduling tab: whether the appointment was booked online, and whether the patient is existing or pending.

How MacPractice handles missed and cancelled visits

Understanding how MacPractice records a broken appointment makes the export easier to read. According to the HelpDesk, Cancelled, Missed and To Reschedule are preset statuses, and each has its own node in the Schedule sidebar. Staff can set an appointment to one of them by double-clicking it, right-clicking it, or dragging it into the node.

Two details matter for your data. First, when an appointment is rescheduled, MacPractice keeps the original as a Historical Appointment Record and creates a new appointment. So a missed visit that was already rebooked will still show as Missed in the report. To tell recovered patients from lost ones, check whether the same Patient # has a later appointment in the file.

Second, the To Reschedule status is a to-do list in disguise. Every appointment sitting there is a patient your office already agreed to rebook. Run the report with only that status selected and you have a call list.

Do not forget follow-ups and recalls

Openings and missed visits are only part of the picture. MacPractice also tracks follow-ups, and recalls in MacPractice DDS. The HelpDesk documents a Follow-Up / Recall Appointments Report with filters for status, type, resource and a follow-up scheduled date range, and columns including patient name, Patient #, age, status and provider.

Patients who are due but have no appointment are often the largest recoverable group in a practice. Pulling this report once a month and comparing it with the Appointments Report shows who is due and still unbooked.

If you would rather work from a list than a report, the HelpDesk notes that many reports offer a Make List button. The list can then be exported from the drawer, and Export Presets control which extra fields go into the file. MacPractice Support can help if you have not set up a preset before.

An illustrative week at a two-doctor chiropractic office

These numbers are made up to show the method. A two-doctor office exports the Appointments Report for the past four weeks with Missed, Cancelled and To Reschedule included. Sorting by Status shows 22 Missed, 31 Cancelled and 9 To Reschedule.

Checking Patient # against later dates shows that 14 of the cancelled patients already rebooked. That leaves 17 cancellations, 22 misses and 9 to-reschedules with nothing on the books: 48 visits. Say a visit is worth $65. That is $3,120 of care that has not been rebooked. Bringing back half is about $1,560 in a month, and many of those patients are mid-plan, so each return can bring follow-up visits with it.

None of this needed special software. It took one report, three statuses and a sort.

Before the file leaves your Mac

Open the .xls and check that every row has a date, time, status and phone number. Delete any Notes, Date of Birth or production columns you did not mean to include. Then send it only to a vendor that has signed a Business Associate Agreement, through that vendor's secure upload, never by regular email. Remove the copy from your Downloads or Desktop folder afterward. For more on safe handling, see keeping schedule exports secure.