We have variations on how we define the time spent by your Practitioners within Cubiko. Understanding these definitions will help you use the best time measurement for your practice
The sections in this article relating to time definitions are:
- Video explaining time definitions
- Session hours
- Booked hours
- Consulting hours and Consulting time
- Admin or Non-patient-facing time
- Unbooked appointments
- Days away
- Future utilisation
- Example appointment book breakdown
Video explaining time definitions
Watch our short video where we go through the main time definitions in Cubiko.
TOP TIP! Use our Hours page in Cubiko to review your appointment book for each timeslot and how it is included in our time defintitions. More information is in our knowledge base guide here.
Session hours
This figure represents practice total session hours for the period selected. Session hour includes the time opened up in your appointment book (either via the session setup screen or right-click make available). It excludes practice closures, days away and right-click make unavailable.
Booked hours
This figure represents the practice total booked appointment time for the period selected. Booked hours includes all the patient appointment slots that are completed, billed, paid, DNA, booked & double booked.
It excludes non-patient appointment types (as set up in your Settings > Appointments).
Consulting hours and Consulting time
This figure represents the practice total consulting hours for the period selected. Consulting hours include all the patient appointments that are completed, billed, paid, and booked and excludes DNA appointments, non-patient appointments (such as Meeting or Other) & double-booked appointments.
Consulting time (used in Time breakdown metrics in Practice Summary and My Cubiko) shows the consulting hours by the Practitioner.
Consulting hours include all the patient appointments that are completed, billed, paid, and booked and excludes DNA appointments, non-patient appointments (such as Meeting or Other) & double-booked appointments.
NOTE: The number of Consulting time hours will match Consulting hours BUT the percentage calculation in Time breakdown will be different from Consulting utilisation (due to using a different denominator in the calculation).
Time breakdown percentages are calculated by dividing each of consulting time, admin time and unbooked appointments by the sum of all hours.
Consulting utilisation is calculated by dividing the duration of all consulting hours by the total available session hours.
Admin time or Non-patient-facing hours
Admin time (used in Time breakdown metrics in Practice Summary and My Cubiko) and Non-patient-facing hours (used in Past Clinic Metrics) show the total non-patient hours by the Practitioner.
Admin time (or non-patient-facing hours) is where the appointment book has been made unavailable in the appointment book (right-click unavailable) or a non-patient appointment type has been booked (e.g. Other, Admin, Meeting).
NOTE: Ensure you add lunch breaks to your appointment book by setting up a morning session and then an afternoon session through Session setup so that lunch breaks are not counted as Admin time because it has been created using 'right-click unavailable'.
TOP TIP! Head to Settings and untick the option Is this a patient appointment? for any non-patient appointment types that you do not want to be counted as Consulting time in your utilisation metrics but want to be included as Admin time.
Unbooked appts and Unbooked time (hours)
Unbooked appts (used in Time breakdown metrics in Practice Summary and My Cubiko) show the unbooked hours by the Practitioner.
Unbooked appointments are the total unbooked hours that were available to be booked (appointment book open but not booked).
Days away
Days away is calculated from the days marked away in your appointment book through both the Session setup and also the time made unavailable (right-click make unavailable).
You can view the breakdown in the graph on the Past clinic metrics > Consulting hours page.
Future utilisation
Future utilisation shows the available time that has been booked to see patients in the future. Utilisation is calculated by dividing the duration of all booked appointments by the total available session hours for team members.
Double booked appointments can be included by selecting the relevant checkbox under filters.
Use the role filter to drill down to see how utilised your doctors, nurses, allied health and specialists are.
Example appointment book breakdown
Below, we have mapped out a typical appointment book from within Best Practice software as an example of the range of appointments that may occur during a typical day and where they would count towards our different historical time breakdown definitions.
In the example above, you can see that the available time to be booked includes all patient and non-patient appointments, and timeslots that are marked as available in the appointment book. These time slots are the Session hours, marked in blue and purple.
Booked hours will include patient appointments only that have been booked into the open Session hours. We count your double bookings in this calculation.
Consulting time will include all patient appointments, but we do not include any double bookings or DNA appointments in this calculation. Ensure you have this set up correctly in your Settings in Cubiko, and be sure to untick any non-patient appointments that you do not wish to be included in this calculation.
Admin time will include all non-patient appointments and any right-click unavailable timeslots, marked in green in the example above.
Unbooked time includes all of the timeslots which are marked as available and are empty and not filled with any type of appointment, these are marked in purple in the example above.
TOP TIP! Ensure you add lunch breaks to your appointment book by setting up a morning session and then an afternoon session through Session setup so that lunch breaks are not counted as Admin time because it has been created using 'right-click unavailable'.