Healthcare Appointments Integration Policies

The following integration policies apply to the Healthcare Appointments integration.

Our policies ensure a consistent user experience when interacting with the appointment availability feature. Appointments that do not follow this policy will be blocked from appearing to users.

  • Appointment links must show the appointment type, location, and available times without further interaction required
  • Appointment types cannot contain erroneous numbers or characters, e.g., “B)”
  • Appointment types must be free of misspellings or typos
  • Appointment types must be less than or equal to 30 characters
  • Appointment types that direct patients to call for an appointment or require an additional referral are not allowed as they are not actionable through the appointment availability feature.
  • Walk-in appointment types are not supported
  • Emergency department [appointment types/en/actions-center/verticals/healthcare/appointments/reference/feeds/appointment-type-feed) are not supported, nor are other appointments at emergency department facilities.
  • All [appointment /content/en/actions-center/verticals/healthcare/appointments/reference/feeds/appointment-type-feed) must respect standard Content policies for Search features
  • Appointment links must only direct users to appointments with licensed, credentialed healthcare providers
  • Complementary and alternative medicine providers are not supported on Healthcare appointments.
  • Appointment links must allow the user to complete their appointment booking
  • Appointment links must lead to an open access booking page, i.e. the user should not be prompted to login or register
  • Appointment links must be accessible to Healthcare Appointments crawlers
    • The page and any necessary resources must load successfully
    • Healthcare Appointments crawlers must not be blocked by robots.txt
    • Healthcare Appointments crawlers must not be required to complete a captcha
    • Healthcare Appointments crawlers must be able to attempt and successfully complete 30 requests per day per appointment link

Accuracy of feeds must consistently exceed 95% at the health system level. Accuracy is determined by comparing data sent via feed to what is listed on the provider’s website.