Workflow
What an acute headache caller is really asking at 10 PM is when. How the call chooses between an immediate escalation, a booked appointment from live availability, and a waitlist hold when the schedule has nothing left.
A patient in an attack at 10 PM is deciding what to do with the next few hours. Ending the call with a date, an escalation, or a waitlist place is a different experience from ending it with a voicemail beep.
If the caller describes severe symptoms, complications, or new-onset presentation, the path is escalation to your on-call clinician or nurse advice line under your protocol, not an appointment three days out.
When nothing suitable is open, the patient goes onto the waitlist with their contact information instead of being asked to try again in the morning, which is where most of these callers are actually lost.
A patient who calls during an attack usually needs help soon. By morning they may have called elsewhere or given up. Resolving the call while they are on it is what keeps them in your practice.
Your team reviews the waitlist and the overnight bookings during business hours and can call to confirm or move an urgent case forward. The night's decisions are a starting point, not the final word.
Real-time EMR sync
New patient names, phone numbers, and appointments write to your EHR instantly
Urgent case escalation
Red-flag symptoms routed to on-call staff or nurse line
Automatic confirmations
SMS or email sent immediately after booking
Three. Either the call is escalated to your on-call clinician now, or an appointment is booked from live availability and confirmed on the call, or they are placed on the waitlist with their contact details. Every caller leaves with one of those, not with voicemail.
By urgency, assessed against your protocol. Severe symptoms, complications and new-onset presentations escalate to the on-call clinician or nurse advice line; the rest are booked, with the case flagged for morning review.
The patient is offered the next available appointment, or placed on a waitlist with their contact information. Your staff reviews the waitlist during business hours and can call to confirm or prioritise urgent cases.
Yes. Cancellations and reschedules can be handled by SMS or email follow-up, through a patient portal, or by calling during business hours, and your staff can modify the booking directly.
Your staff, during business hours. The waitlist carries each caller's contact details and the context captured on the night call, so the review is a prioritisation exercise rather than a round of discovery calls.
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