How to apply policies to products

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Contracts, Products and Limits:

Summary:
1) Create eligibility policy (leave all blank except default)
2) Create pricing policy (enter price and leave rest blank except default)
3) Done.


Emma comes with a variety of limits and policies that you can use in your system. This document will show you how to use each one:

It is assumed at this point that you have created a contract, assigned locations to it, entered some products and you have a blank product which is awaiting policies.

Eligibility Policy

This is the most basic policy. It 'allows' patients to use the products assigned. In most cases, the abilities of this policy will overlap with those of the Pricing policy so it is recommended that in all but several very special cases that a Master policy is created that is then inherited to all sub product.
To do this:
1) Select the appointment or product group
2) Choose the Eligibility policy and select inherit (also enter a date to begin the policy - this should be today) and click Add
3) Then select the policy and add the rules - For general use select 'Default' and then press Add.
NB: If you select the 'Default' button in any rule, this rule becomes the master rule in the absence of any other rules. IE if you leave gaps in your eligibility, then the default rule will fill them. Please always put the default rule last as the system will check all the rules one by one until it gets to the last one. If it comes across the default rule first, it will always fall back onto that one without getting to the others.


This will allow all patients to access all products in that group.
To add further restrictions, use the Pricing policy

Pricing Policy
This policy has all of the same features of the Eligibility policy but also allows you to control location and price. Provided that the patient is eligible (ie - the Eligibility policy has been defined), then the Pricing Policy will allow you all the flexibility you need to create prices.
To do this:
1) Select the product you wish to assign a price to and select the Pricing policy, click add.
2) Select the policy and add in the rules you wish to apply. Remember that if you wish simply to have an 'Everybody/Anytime' rule, you simply need to put in a price in the Price box and select Default.
NB: The % box next to the price box allows you to assign a 'Relative' Price. This allows you to give discounts relative to the 'Private' contract. If the prices in that contract change, then they will automatically change in your contract too.
Pricing policies, like all policies, may also be inherited so if you want to assign a 10% discount to all products in that category, simply follow the procedure above for the Eligibility policy and substitute a 90% price in to be inherited.

Please always put the default rule last as the system will check all the rules one by one until it gets to the last one. If it comes across the default rule first, it will always fall back onto that one without getting to the others.

 

Having assigned an Eligibility Policy and a Pricing Policy, you are now ready to start taking bookings.
If you wish to complicate matters further, read on.

Booking Policy:
The booking policy allows you to prevent an appointment being booked more than or less than a certain number of days in advance depending on their Eligibility, Age and Sex
A booking rule is measured in days only.
To use a booking rule, do the following:
1) Select the product you wish to add the booking policy to and select a 'Booking policy', click add.
2) Select the policy from the list and enter the criteria that fit your usage - ie if you want everyone to have to book more that 3 days in advance for this product and not more that 180, enter 180 and 3 in the 'Days from' and 'Days to' boxes. You may also limit these by age and eligibility.


Place and Time Policy
This policy allows you to control access to products from certain locations at certain times. It is used in exactly the same way as the pricing policy but instead does not control price.

Cancellation Policy
The cancellation policy allows you to set a price for a product that changes with time depending on when it was cancelled.
It can also be dependent on eligibility, sex and age.
The boxes may be completed as follows:

Price - Initial price charged if cancelled well in advance.
% - This is the relative price charge if cancelled (ie 100% of private or 43% of private price)
Late Hours - This sets the limit beyond which the previous two boxes apply. Ie - if this is set to 48, then the Price or % boxes will apply to cancellations made beyond 48 hours in advance.

Late Price - This is the price charged if the cancellation is made less that the 'Late hours' number of hours in advance. This may also be relative.

Repeat/Follow-up Policy
This policy allows you to trigger a task to be scheduled at a certain number of days after an appointment has been booked. This is useful for annual health screens or new patient appointments.
This may be varied on the basis of age, sex or eligibility level.
To use, simply indicate the number of days you wish to have between the creation of the task and the appointment.

SMS/Email policy
These policies allow you to trigger SMS and email events at a set number of hours in advance of an appointment.
These also require special set up on your server. If you are not sure whether you have this, please contact your supplier.

Limit Policies
Limit policies may only be applied to Product Sets. For more information on Product Sets, please consult the relevant documentation