🖥️ For providers using the Oasys web app. This covers booking and managing appointments; starting a session and your scheduling settings each have their own article.
This article walks you through putting appointments on your calendar and keeping them up to date. You'll learn how to create one-off and recurring appointments, add units and add-on services, handle client bookings and requests, reschedule or cancel, change an appointment's status, and block time.
In this article
1. Creating an appointment
You can create appointments from the Calendar tab or directly from a client's page.
From the Calendar tab
Go to the Calendar tab and click Create Appointment. You can also click or drag across an open time slot.
Choose what you're creating at the top: Appointment, Group (if group sessions are turned on for your account), or Calendar block.
Choose a service. This sets the default duration, session mode, and pricing.
Choose the session mode, if the service allows more than one: Telehealth (video), In-Person, or Phone.
Change Units if needed (see Units and additional services).
Select a client from your caseload, or a couple or family if your account uses them.
Pick the date and start time, and choose a Recurrence if the appointment repeats (see Setting up recurring sessions).
Select a room and, for in-person sessions, a Location, if your practice uses them. Then click Create appointment (or Create recurring series).
Before you save, the bar at the bottom of the dialog shows the date and time. If billing is on, it also shows the price and CPT code.
From the client's page
Click New in the Sessions and Notes section and select Schedule Session.
Complete the steps above. The client is already filled in.
Things to know when booking
You can't create an appointment in the past from this dialog. Past dates can't be picked, and a past time on today's date shows "Start time must be in the future."
To add a session that already happened, use Log Session (see Logging a previous session). Clicking or dragging across a past time on your calendar opens Log session automatically.
Your working hours don't limit you. When you book a client yourself, you can choose any time that doesn't overlap another appointment.
Times already taken show "This time is unavailable. Please select another time." Your availability only limits what clients can book.
If Send appointment updates is on in your Scheduling policies, the client gets an email with the date, time, and session type. It has Add to your calendar links (Google, Apple, Outlook) and, for video sessions, a Join video session button.
2. Setting up recurring sessions
Use a recurring series for clients you see on a regular schedule.
Pick a start time while creating an appointment, then open Recurrence.
Choose a preset: Daily, Weekly on (the day), Monthly on (for example, the second Tuesday), Annually on (the date), Every weekday (Mon-Fri), or Custom....
Set Repeat every if you chose Custom...: a number of days, weeks, months, or years and, for weekly patterns, the days of the week.
Choose when the series stops under Ends: Never, On a date, or After a number of occurrences (up to 100).
Click Create recurring series.
If some dates in the series clash with existing appointments, the Resolve Scheduling Conflicts window lets you pick a different time for each one. Dates you don't resolve stay unscheduled, and you can resolve them later from your calendar.
Managing a series
To remove a whole series, open one of its appointments and delete all of them.
You can't change the time of a whole series or edit the series as a whole. To change it, delete the series and create another one.
To make a series longer, open one of its appointments, click the three-dot menu, and choose Extend Series.
Pick a New End Date. It must be after the current end date and no more than one year from today.
Series that end within the next 14 days appear in the Pending window on your calendar, so you can extend them before they run out.
⚠️ Important: Units and additional services can't be set on a recurring series.
3. Units and additional services
If billing is turned on for your account, you can adjust how much of a service an appointment covers and attach add-on services to it.
Units
Set Units (1 to 24) when you create an appointment. The appointment's length is the service duration multiplied by the units. For example, a 60-minute service with 2 units becomes a 2-hour appointment.
The price is multiplied by the units too.
To change units later, open the appointment, click the three-dot menu, choose Edit, and change Units. The end time is recalculated.
To bill a different CPT code, choose a different Service Type while editing. The list shows each service's CPT code. Applicable CPT shows the code that will be billed, marked (Pricing rule) or (Manual override) when one applies. Choosing a different service replaces any earlier CPT override with that service's code.
If the session is already completed, saving also updates the session's start and end times when the duration changes. The edit screen tells you this before you save.
Additional services (add-ons)
Additional services are add-on CPT codes you bill alongside the main service. Examples include interactive complexity (90785), an additional testing hour (96131), and after-hours office care (99050 or 99051).
Go to Settings → Scheduling → Default services.
Click Add Service and choose Add Additional Service.
Enter a Service Name, a Duration (minutes), a Price per unit, and an add-on CPT code. Enter 0 minutes if the service doesn't add time.
Click Save Service.
Additional services can't be saved while billing is off, and they can't be set as your default service.
They don't carry their own no-show or late cancellation fees.
After-hours codes (99050, 99051) are untimed, so use a duration of 0. They're never added automatically based on the appointment time: attach them yourself when they apply.
Whether a payer reimburses an add-on code depends on the payer.
To attach an add-on to an appointment, open Additional service lines in the create dialog (or while editing an appointment). Click Add line, choose the service, and set its units.
You can attach up to 5 lines.
Each line's duration is added to the appointment's length, and each line's total is added to the price.
⚠️ Important: Units and add-ons have limits:
They aren't available on recurring series or group sessions.
In Practice HQ, only staff with permission to manage booking billing can change them.
Once an appointment has been invoiced, claimed, or paid, its units and add-ons are locked.
4. Client self-booking
If you've turned on Enable direct client booking in your Scheduling policies, clients can book their own appointments. Here's what your client does in their Oasys client portal:
Select a service type from your available options.
Choose a session mode, if the service offers more than one.
Pick a date and one of your open time slots. Slots come from your availability, minus existing appointments, calendar blocks, and (if you've turned it on) your Google Calendar events.
Confirm the booking. It's confirmed instantly, or arrives as a request for you to approve if Require booking approval is on.
Minimum notice period and Maximum advance booking limit how soon and how far ahead clients can book (see Scheduling policies). Clients can't book a time in the past ("Appointments cannot be booked in the past.").
💡 Tip: Want clients to book from your website? The scheduling widget embeds directly on your site.
5. Calendar views
Switch views to see your week at a glance or focus on a single day.
List: a chronological list of the week's appointments.
Month, Week, and Day: calendar grids.
On a computer, the view buttons are at the top right of the calendar.
On a phone, the calendar opens on a two-day view. Go back to a month view to jump to another day.
The legend
The legend under the calendar shows what each color means: Upcoming, Completed, No Show, Needs Approval, Cancellation Pending, Cancelled, GCal Event, Community Event, Other (calendar blocks), and Unavailable (outside your working hours).
From the legend you can also:
Show or hide cancelled events.
Show or hide Google Calendar events (if connected).
Switch between Show initials and Show full names for clients.
Change the colors with Customize Colors.
When clients have sent requests (bookings, reschedules, or cancellations), a Pending button with the number of requests appears at the top of the calendar. Click it to review them.
6. Rescheduling or cancelling
Click any appointment on your calendar to open the detail window, then choose an action.
Reschedule: choose a different date and time and click Confirm Reschedule. You can also drag an appointment to another time on the calendar and confirm it.
Cancel: choose who asked for the cancellation under Who requested this cancellation? (the client or Practice staff). This is required, and Cancel Late asks for it too. Add an optional Cancellation reason. Leave Notify the client ticked if you want the client to get an email. Click Yes, cancel session.
A cancelled appointment shows who requested the cancellation (Requested by) and who cancelled it in Oasys (Recorded by). Your choice doesn't change cancellation fees or who gets emailed.
Cancel Late: use this when the client cancelled inside your late cancellation window. The appointment is marked Cancelled Late. If the service has a late cancellation fee, the fee is added to the appointment so it can be billed.
If no late cancellation fee is set up for that session mode, you'll see Late Cancellation Fee Not Configured and can click Proceed Without Fee.
No Show: shown in the cancel menu once the appointment time has passed. If the service has a no-show fee, it's shown in the confirmation. You can choose whether to notify the client.
The client is notified of a reschedule if Send appointment updates is on in your Scheduling policies.
Handling client requests
Clients can request to reschedule (if Allow client reschedule requests is on) and can cancel (if Allow client cancellations is on). Open the request from the Pending button or the appointment:
Booking requests: approve or reject. The client is notified either way.
Reschedule requests: approve (the appointment moves to the requested time) or deny (it stays at the original time). To propose a different time, deny the request and reschedule manually.
Cancellation requests: click Approve cancellation. If the request was inside your late window, the box "This is a late cancellation. Uncheck to waive any applicable fee." is ticked. Untick it to waive the fee.
You can also tick "Mark as late cancellation" on a request that wasn't late.
A client cancellation inside your late cancellation threshold always needs your approval, even if Require cancellation approval is off.
Other actions in the three-dot menu
Edit
Copy Link and Re-send Invite (upcoming video appointments only)
Download Event (a calendar file)
Extend Series
Delete
⚠️ Important: If you can't change, reschedule, or edit an appointment, check whether it has already been billed. An appointment that has been invoiced, paid, partly paid, or claimed shows Status locked. Void the invoice from the Billing tab first.
7. Changing an appointment's status
Change the status when an appointment's outcome is different from what's shown.
Open the appointment and click the three-dot menu.
Select Edit and choose a Status. The choices depend on timing (see the table below).
Click Save.
When | Statuses you can choose |
Upcoming | Scheduled, Rescheduled, Cancelled, Cancelled Late |
In progress | Scheduled, No Show, Cancelled, Cancelled Late |
Ended | Completed, No Show, Cancelled, Cancelled Late |
For an appointment that's already Completed or No Show, you can also use the Switch to Completed / Switch to No Show link. Marking a no-show as Completed creates an empty session for it, so it becomes billable.
Cancelled by mistake?
If the appointment is still upcoming, open it, choose Edit, and set Status back to Scheduled.
If it has already ended, change it to Completed or No Show instead.
When you set a cancelled appointment back to Scheduled, the client isn't notified and the Google Calendar event isn't re-created.
What you can't change
An appointment that has been billed is locked until the billing is undone (see Rescheduling or cancelling).
Delete is only offered for completed, no-show, cancelled, or late-cancelled appointments.
Delete is blocked while the appointment has a live invoice or a payment on it. You'll see "Cannot delete booking with a recorded payment. Please mark it unpaid first."
In Practice HQ, only the provider can mark an appointment Completed or No Show.
8. Blocking time on your calendar
Block time for meetings, breaks, admin work, personal time, or anything else that isn't a session. Clients can't book during those hours.
To create a time block
From the Calendar tab, click Create Appointment and switch to the Calendar block tab:
Enter a Title (required), for example "Team Meeting", "Lunch", or "Out of Office".
Select the date and time range. For a whole day or a stretch of days (such as a vacation), tick All day and choose the start and end dates.
Add Details if you like.
Click Create event.
The block appears on your calendar. It removes that time from what clients can book in the client portal and the scheduling widget.
Recurring time blocks
For regular commitments, such as weekly staff meetings or daily lunch breaks:
Choose a Recurrence. The options are the same as for appointments (see Setting up recurring sessions), including weekly and custom intervals.
Set an end date or leave it open-ended.
Manage the series later: you can extend it, cancel future instances, or delete individual ones.
✅ Good to know: Calendar blocks aren't billable. They're calendar holds that keep your availability accurate.
If you've connected Google Calendar and turned on Block time slots with Google Calendar events (Settings → Scheduling → Scheduling policies), your Google Calendar events block bookings automatically.
You don't need separate calendar blocks for those events.
Frequently asked questions
Can I book an appointment in the past?
Not from Create Appointment. Use Log Session instead. Clients and the scheduling widget can't book past times either.
Does my client get a calendar invite?
The appointment email includes Add to your calendar links for Google, Apple, and Outlook (not an attached invite), and a Join video session button for video appointments. It's sent only if Send appointment updates is on.
I cancelled an appointment by mistake. Can I undo it?
Yes, if it hasn't been billed. Open it, choose Edit, and set Status back to Scheduled (upcoming) or to Completed / No Show (ended). The client isn't notified when you set it back to Scheduled, and the Google Calendar event isn't re-created.
Can I bill two units of a service, or add an add-on code?
Yes, if billing is on. Set Units on the appointment and attach additional services. See Units and additional services.
What do I do if I can't open, cancel, or edit an appointment?
Check whether it has already been invoiced, paid, or claimed. Billed appointments show Status locked. Void the invoice from the Billing tab first, then make your change. Appointments that use an archived service type still open normally.