Patent ID: 8688466

Claim:
A method for online booking of healthcare office appointments comprising: storing, on an aggregator server, for each of a plurality of healthcare practitioners from a plurality of unaffiliated practice groups, a procedure and corresponding procedure duration for each practitioner, wherein each stored procedure is selected from predefined procedure types and the procedure duration is individual to each associated practitioner; maintaining, by the server, an aggregator database of updated available office appointment data individual to each practitioner, wherein maintaining comprises: receiving, by the server, from a webpage for entry by the practice groups, available office appointment times for an associated practitioner in time blocks, wherein a time block includes multiple contiguous available appointment times for a particular practitioner and practitioner office location; storing, by the server, in the aggregator database, the received time blocks as open time blocks for the associated practitioner; pulling, by the server, from a synchronizer at the practice group of the associated practitioner, at least one booked appointment time; and updating, by the server, the available appointment times in the aggregator database by modifying the open time blocks to remove the at least one booked appointment time pulled from the synchronizer; receiving, by the server, from an associated website, a patient request identifying a procedure selected from one of the predefined procedure types; processing, by the server, the patient request, for each practitioner having the identified procedure stored in the database, wherein processing comprises: splitting the open time blocks of the practitioner based on the stored procedure duration of the practitioner to generate a plurality of individual start times; and displaying, on the website, the plurality of individual start times for selection by the patient to book an office appointment on the website; receiving, on the server, a patient selected start time; and booking an office appointment at the selected start time with the associated practitioner and identified procedure, wherein booking comprises: confirming, via the server, the booked appointment by notifying the patient; and updating the available office appointment data stored in the aggregator database by modifying the stored open time blocks for the respective practitioner to remove the booked appointment time.