Last month, we shared how to use appointment_descriptors to categorize appointments based on procedure codes and EHR-specific appointment types. Now, we’re excited to announce that it’s possible to read EHR-specific appointment types for more health record systems: athenahealth, Dentrix, Dentrix Enterprise, Eaglesoft, and Open Dental.

We’ve also updated the Synchronizer for Denticon, Dentrix Ascend, and Open Dental. Read on to learn more!

Read more EHR-specific appointment types

Developers often want to let practices configure their online calendars, patient reminders, and medical forms based on how appointments are categorized or labeled in a health record system. For example, an appointment with a “New Patient” appointment type in Eaglesoft would likely have a different workflow than one with an “Emergency” appointment type.

Rather than building bespoke integrations and normalizing the appointment type data from different health record systems, you can use the Synchronizer API to retrieve appointment categories and labels from many systems via appointment_descriptors.

Appointment_descriptors store emr_appt_descriptor_ids, each of which has a corresponding descriptor_type that indicates whether it is a procedure code (CDT or CPT code) or an EHR-specific appointment type.

It’s now possible to return EHR-specific appointment types for athenahealth, Dentrix, Dentrix Enterprise, Eaglesoft, and Open Dental via a GET request to /locations/{id}/appointment_descriptors?descriptor_type={EHR_descriptor_type_name}.

You should get a response similar to the one below. You can see the EHR-specific appointment type under name:

{
    "code": true,
    "description": [],
    "error": [],
    "data": [
        {
            "id": 1822,
            "descriptor_type": "Eaglesoft Appointment Types",
            "name": "New patient appointment",
            "code": "",
            "location_id": 5,
            "foreign_id": "17",
            "foreign_id_type": "msg-eaglesoft-DataSource-2558",
            "data": {
            	"active": true,
              "type_id": 2,
              "description": "New patient appointment"
            },
            "active": true,
            "last_sync_time": null,
            "created_at": "2022-04-19T22:57:22.860Z",
            "updated_at": "2022-04-19T22:57:22.860Z"
        }
      ]
}

You can also see the EHR-specific appointment types attached to an appointment. Just make a GET request to /appointments/{id}/appointment_descriptors?descriptor_type={EHR_descriptor_type_name} or /appointments/{id}?include[]=descriptors.

Synchronizer API product updates

Dentrix Ascend and Denticon

• Dentrix Ascend and Denticon recently released updates to their forms and appointments products. We have updated the Synchronizer to be compatible with the Dentrix Ascend and Denticon code changes so developers can continue writing forms and appointment requests to those practice management systems. 

Open Dental

• We updated the Synchronizer to pick up deleted appointments more reliably so appointment reminders aren’t sent in error.
• We also decreased the amount of time between read cycles so your app can display more up-to-date calendar availability and patient data.