Opening a new clinic on Bio6

You have no data to migrate, no system to unplug and no period of parallel operation to plan for. You have a clinic to configure and patients to see.

This guide follows exactly the startup guide that Bio6 displays on your home page, in the same order, while adding what the checkbox does not say: the decisions that are made once and are difficult to revisit afterwards.

Choosing your modules

On first launch, Bio6 asks which modules you use. This choice is not a formality: it determines which steps appear in your startup guide, and therefore what your team sees when it arrives.

The most common configurations are the standard setup (patients, calendar, billing) and the billing only setup, intended for a clinic whose schedule is managed elsewhere. Variants also exist for sports medicine and telerehabilitation.

Take the smallest module that covers your current practice. Adding a module later takes two minutes, whereas removing a function your team has started using takes considerably longer.

Step 1: complete the clinic profile

Settings → Clinic → General. This is the first box in the startup guide and the one that feeds the others, since the clinic name, address and branding appear on your invoices, your emails and your booking page.

Two fields deserve particular attention.

• The time zone determines the date on which an appointment appears. If it is set incorrectly, your days shift without the cause being obvious.
• The booking address becomes the public URL your patients will use. It can be changed, but not easily once it is printed on your cards.

Step 2: invite your team

Settings → Clinic → Team and roles. Invite your team members one at a time, choosing their role deliberately.

This is also the right moment to decide what the front desk can see in a clinical record. In a clinic that is opening, the tendency is to give everyone broad access in order to save time, and that access never tightens on its own afterwards.

Step 3: add your first patient

Patients → New patient. Create a real record rather than a test one, since the startup guide expects a genuine record and you will have to verify the full path in any case.

Step 4: schedule your first appointment and assign it

The next two boxes go together: create the appointment, then assign a clinician to it.

Before multiplying appointments, configure your appointment types and their durations. An initial assessment and a follow-up do not take the same time, and it is this setting that will make your schedule readable, as well as your online booking usable the day you enable it.

Step 5: billing

Three boxes, in this order.

Create your services. Settings → Clinic → Billing → Services. These are your treatments and their rates. This step conditions all the others, since no invoice can be issued without a service.

Configure a payment method. Settings → Clinic → Billing. Here you define how your patients pay for care, by card, in cash or by transfer.

Issue your first invoice, from an appointment or from the billing page.

Run the full path at least once, from service to payment by way of the appointment and the invoice, before welcoming your first patients. That half hour saves you discovering a problem on a Friday afternoon.

If you bill CNESST

Two steps are added: associating CNESST codes with your services, then issuing a first coded invoice.

The guide Completing the CNESST account of care and treatment (5055) in Bio6 then covers the full cycle, from opening the file through to tracking the payment.

What is better postponed

This section covers what the startup guide does not tell you.

Every function added during the first week is one more thing to learn for a team already taking in a great deal. What is not configured does not slow you down, unlike what is configured badly.

Frequently asked questions

Do we have to tick everything before seeing a patient?

No. The profile, one patient and one appointment are enough to begin. Billing can be settled in the following days, provided you test it before your first month end.

Can we change modules afterwards?

Yes. Modules adjust what you see, not what you can do. Adding one later erases no data.

How do I find the startup guide if it has disappeared from the home page?

It can be closed, but it remains available from the help panel in the header.

Only two clinicians: do we really need distinct roles?

Yes, if one takes on administrative tasks and the other clinical ones, since the role determines access to records. This distinction is simpler to establish at the outset than to tighten a year later.

What should we do to import an existing patient list?

Your situation is then a migration rather than an opening. The guide Moving to Bio6 in 30 days covers the export, the validation and the consents.

Further reading

• Getting started with Bio6, how a clinic day unfolds
• Inviting your team, roles in detail
• Making the most of Bio6's AI, to read once things are running