Scheduling

4.16. Feral Cats - Scheduling & Services

Scheduling spay/neuter appointments for feral cats is a critical part of managing community cat populations. This section explains how to schedule ferals using the E-Appointments (E-Apps) system, along with pricing recommendations and additional resources.

How to Schedule Feral Cats on E-Apps

  1. Go to Settings > E-Appointments > Edit Spay/Neuter appointment type.
  2. Under General Preferences, check Allow clients to mark if a cat will be arriving in a trap.

How it works:

  • By default, the animal type for all e-appointments is Owned.
  • If a client selects the trap checkbox, the system automatically switches the animal type to Community Cat Feral.
  • If your Capacity Management settings assign different animal types to separate calendar tiles, the appointment will be moved from the Owned tile to the Community Cat Feral tile.

✅ Pro Tip: If the animal’s sex is unknown, enter female. Female surgeries typically take the most time, ensuring the schedule allows enough capacity. You can adjust later if needed.

❌ Important: Do not use “lion” or other species labels to differentiate ferals. This causes incorrect consent forms and creates confusion for staff and clients.

Pricing Adjustments for Feral Cats

In Clinic HQ, all cats must use the same surgery line items: Cat Spay and Cat Neuter. Custom items such as Feral Cat Spay or Feral Cat Neuter cannot be created.

This ensures:

  • Clean reporting on surgery totals.
  • Accurate recognition of spay/neuter capabilities.
  • Proper system functionality.

Options for adjusting pricing:

  • *Create Packages Set up bundled packages specifically for feral cat surgeries (e.g., surgery + vaccine at a discounted rate). See Clinic HQ Packages for setup details.
  • Set Up Subsidies: Apply subsidies in two ways: ** Using a grant: Apply discounts based on external funding for feral surgeries. ** Billing for discounted portions: Charge clients only for the subsidized portion. See Subsidies for setup guidance

Additional Resources

For further training on scheduling and pricing setup, visit *Clinic HQ University and complete the relevant HQ Courses. These courses provide step-by-step guidance on items, pricing, and best practices.

4.15. Quick Search Action Menu

The Quick Search Action Menu (formerly called the Jumbo Menu) provides shortcuts to common scheduling workflows. Think of it as a traffic director —pointing you to the right place in HQ to start tasks quickly.

4.17. Address Requirements & Special Circumstances

Addresses are often the most time-consuming data field to enter—sometimes taking twice as long as other client information. Asking for the address at the time of appointment booking helps spread out the workload and prevents delays during checkout, which is already a busy process.