Booking
Opening online booking without losing control of the schedule
The confirmation mode, which services to open first, the booking window, and what to watch during the first month.
The fear is not technical. Opening online booking means accepting that strangers write into your schedule, and nobody wants to discover on a Monday morning that an initial assessment has been booked into a thirty-minute block.
That fear is justified, and it is addressed through settings rather than by giving up. You choose what can be booked, by whom, how far ahead, and whether a person confirms before the appointment exists.
This guide follows those decisions in the order they are made.
The confirmation mode
This is the setting that answers the opening fear, and it is worth pausing on before all the others. Three modes exist, and they differ on two questions: is the slot held immediately, and does a person have to accept.
| Mode | The slot is held | A person confirms |
|---|---|---|
| Request to confirm | No, not until you have accepted | Yes |
| Provisional booking | Yes, as soon as the patient books | Yes |
| Instant booking | Yes, and it is confirmed | No |
Request to confirm is the mode to choose at the start. Nothing enters the schedule without a person accepting it, which lets you watch the first bookings go by before deciding whether you trust the setting.
Provisional booking is the lasting compromise for most clinics. The slot is held as soon as the patient books, so they are not double-booked while the request waits, but confirmation remains human.
Instant booking is suitable once you have evidence, over a few weeks, that what arrives matches what you meant to open.
Switching from one mode to another can be done at any time and requires no reconfiguration. Nothing obliges you to choose correctly first time, which is one more reason to start cautiously.
Which services to open first
Online booking is enabled service by service. This is where the schedule is genuinely protected, more so than in the confirmation mode.
Open follow-ups. A follow-up has a predictable duration, it concerns a patient you already know, and a booking error costs a slot rather than a rushed assessment.
Keep initial assessments closed at first. These are the ones that require judgement: the right duration depends on the condition, and a patient who picks the wrong service occupies an unsuitable block. You will be able to open them later, once you know what patients actually choose.
Leave closed anything that presupposes a prior clinical decision, such as specific interventions or appointments that depend on a prescription.
Each service carries its own setting, and a closed service simply does not appear in the list offered to the patient.
The booking window
Two values frame when a patient can book, and they solve two different problems.
Expressed in hours, it prevents a booking too close to the present moment.
Without it, a patient can book for twenty minutes from now, which leaves nobody time to prepare the record or even to see the request come in.
Expressed in days, it limits how far ahead a booking can be made.
Too wide a window fills weeks you may want to reorganise, and appointments booked very far ahead are the ones patients forget most.
Twenty-four hours of notice and a window of thirty to sixty days suit most clinics. If your no-show rate is high on distant appointments, tighten the window before concluding that online booking is the cause.
Clinicians and slots
An open service only appears if somebody can deliver it. Two settings feed what the patient sees.
Each clinician indicates whether they accept online bookings. That decision belongs to them: an already full schedule has nothing to gain from opening up, and forcing a reluctant clinician is the fastest way to make the whole team abandon the tool.
Availability slots then determine the hours offered. It is these, and not your opening hours, that decide what appears, which allows you to open only part of the day to booking.
Where requests arrive
Except in instant mode, every booking waits for a decision from you. Requests arrive in the same queue as messages and requests taken by phone, which avoids having to watch two places.
The guide Configuring the phone assistant describes that queue in detail, since it is the same screen.
Making the link known
The booking address is public and can be copied from the settings page. Three places cover the essentials: your website, your Google listing, and your email signature.
The page also provides a QR code to print for the front desk. It is the simplest way to move patients who call for a routine follow-up towards the screen, and it works while the line is busy.
The first month
Open first for a single clinician, on follow-ups only, in "request to confirm" mode. Within two weeks you will know whether the bookings coming in resemble what you expected.
Four things are worth observing during that period.
What patients actually choose. If several book a follow-up when they needed an assessment, it is your service names that are ambiguous, not the patients.
How long you take to accept. A request that waits two days cancels out the advantage of online booking. If nobody handles the queue daily, switch to provisional booking rather than leaving patients waiting.
The no-show rate on those appointments. Compare it with appointments booked by phone. If it is higher, the cause is almost always the distance in time, and it is corrected with the window.
What the front desk observes. They will be the first to see whether patients still call anyway, and why.
Online booking brings patients in at times you did not choose one by one. That is the point, and it is also what makes reminders indispensable: an appointment booked three weeks ahead with no reminder is an appointment at risk. The guide Reducing no-shows and missed appointments covers the subject, including the consent trap that stops reminders going out.
Frequently asked questions
Can a patient cancel or move an appointment themselves?
The patient portal allows appointments to be viewed when it is enabled. Changes depend on your settings and on your cancellation policy, which is better settled before opening booking than afterwards.
Does the patient need an existing record?
No. An online booking can come from a new person, and that is one of the benefits of the tool. It is also one more reason to start in "request to confirm" mode.
Does it replace the front desk?
No, it reduces the volume of routine calls. Requests that require judgement continue to arrive by phone, and that is the desirable behaviour.
Can we open a single location?
Yes. Locations are managed separately, and a service can be offered at one location without being offered at another.
In which language does the patient see the page?
You choose the portal language in the settings: French only, English only, or both.
Further reading
- Reducing no-shows and missed appointments, for the reminders that online booking makes necessary
- Configuring the phone assistant, for the queue where requests arrive
- Opening a new clinic on Bio6, for the services and durations that feed what is offered
More guides
- Moving to Bio6 in 30 daysA four-week migration plan for a clinic changing software: who does what, in what order, and the difficulties to expect along the way.
- Making the most of Bio6's AI in your clinicWhat Cortex, Scribe and clinical relevance actually do, their usefulness in a clinic week, how to deploy them and what precautions to take.
- Opening a new clinic on Bio6Setting up a clinic from scratch, in the order of the startup guide: profile, team, first patient, first appointment, billing.
- Getting started with BioBandA guide for pilot clinics: pairing the band, positioning it, running a first assessment, and reading the measurement correctly.
- Completing the CNESST account of care and treatment (5055) in Bio6The full procedure: create the file, code the month's attendance, check the fields the 5055 requires, submit the period and follow the payment through.
- Reducing no-shows and missed appointmentsWhy a clinic can hold every patient phone number and send no reminders at all, how to choose when they go out, and the cancellation policy that makes the difference.
- Running a successful clinic pilotHow to scope a four-week pilot, define success criteria before starting, choose the participants, and reach a decision you can defend at the end.
- Standardising your assessments with PROMsChoosing the questionnaires, deciding when to administer them, and reading a change in score: what makes results comparable across clinicians and over time.
- Configuring the phone assistantAnswering the calls nobody picked up: the forwarding to set up with your provider, the transfer line, and the thirty-second test that confirms it all works.