Manage the Live Queue

The live queue on the Appointment screen is the operational panel for same-day patient flow. It shows arrival, consultation, inpatient or treatment transfer, and billing status in one place.

Understand the Queue Structure

The live queue has four columns.

Even within IN_PROGRESS, the system may split patients between OPD Exam and TX / IPD depending on appointment type and nextStep.

How a Patient Enters the Queue

Common paths into Arrived include:

• Same-day check-in for a scheduled patient
• Check In from the customer detail workspace
• Sending an appointment into the queue

The customer-side Check In flow usually performs these actions together:

• Creates an immediate appointment
• Applies selected weight and memo values
• Sends the patient into Arrived

How to Read a Queue Card

Each queue card surfaces operational data such as:

• Pet name and HN
• Customer name
• Waiting duration
• Appointment or service type
• Assigned staff member
• Tags for lab, treatment, or diagnostic work
• Service labels such as hotel, grooming, or taxi
• Urgent or quick-registration badges

Tip: Quick-registration and urgent patients often rise higher in attention. Review them early when the front desk becomes congested.

Main Actions

Step 1. Start care from Arrived

Hover over a card in Arrived to start the visit. This moves the case into IN_PROGRESS.

The same action can also happen by dragging the card into OPD Exam.

Step 2. Move cards by drag and drop

Cards can be moved between columns such as:

• Arrived -> OPD Exam
• OPD Exam -> Billing
• OPD Exam -> TX / IPD
• Exceptional reversals such as Billing -> Arrived

The context menu also supports transfer targets like Waiting, OPD, IPD, and Billing.

Step 3. Send a patient toward TX / IPD

When a patient is moved into TX / IPD, the meaning depends on the case.

• IPD-intended cases may open the admission workflow
• Hotel, grooming, or pet taxi cases may also appear in this operational stream
• If the next step is WARD, the admission modal can open before the queue state fully changes

Step 4. Send a patient to Billing

Moving a patient into Billing requires all operational conditions to be satisfied:

• A medical record exists
• The record is still in a billable working state
• The current user has permission to send the visit to POS

When those conditions are met, the billing handoff runs and the patient enters WAITING_FOR_PAYMENT.

Warning: If the medical record does not exist or the visit is not yet billable, the Billing transfer is blocked. Confirm record and POS readiness before forcing the move.

Step 5. Open payment from Billing

Clicking a card in Billing may open the payment flow immediately if a bill is already available. If billing lookup fails or the bill is not ready yet, the UI may fall back to a more general detail view.

Common Operational Exceptions

The patient does not appear in Billing

Common causes:

• No medical record exists
• The medical record is not ready for billing handoff
• The current user lacks POS handoff permission

The patient appears in TX / IPD instead of OPD

This usually happens when one of the following is true:

• The appointment type is IPD
• The case is related to hotel, grooming, or pet taxi
• nextStep is WARD or SURGERY

Clicking a Billing card does not open payment directly

This usually means the system could not open a matching bill immediately and fell back to a standard detail flow.

Practical Operating Rules

• Queue movement is not just display management. It is a workflow handoff.
• Before moving a card, review red flags, chief complaint, and assignee context.
• If WAITING_FOR_PAYMENT grows too long, investigate front desk billing congestion before adjusting clinical flow.

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