Waiting list
A cancellation starts a conversation, not just an empty hour
When a patient cancels, the hour is held and a round of offers begins. Not a broadcast to everybody at once, but successive waves with a deadline to answer - and the first person to say yes has the hour.
Why waves rather than everybody at once
Because a waiting list is worth something only for as long as people still read it.
The closer the visit, the wider the wave
An hour freeing up in two weeks goes to one or two people first, because there is time to wait for an answer. An hour freeing up tomorrow goes straight to a larger group, because waiting costs more than the awkwardness does.
Every offer has a deadline
If nobody answers, the offer expires and the hour comes back - either to the next wave or to you. It is not held indefinitely by somebody who did not read their text.
When the question goes to several people, the message says so
And the ones who missed out hear the same day rather than after two days of silence. Racing for an hour is fine if you know about it in advance; finding out afterwards is not.
Decline three times and the questions stop
For a while, not forever. Every message past that point degrades the channel you will later need to reach that person for real - and it is exactly the channel your reminders go out on.
What this list will not do
It will not offer anybody an hour from a block marked private. A slot freed inside one of those is yours to fill or to leave empty - the same rule as on the booking page, and it holds without exception.
It will not take the decision away from you either. You can reclaim a held hour at any moment with one button - because the commonest reason to need that is a patient ringing about that exact hour, and then you are standing at the calendar rather than in the settings.
Waiting list
Questions
How many cancelled hours actually come back?
I am not publishing an example figure, because the first practice has not produced one and an invented one would simply be prettier. The console counts it for you - how many hours cancellations freed, how many came back, how long it took and what they were worth at the service's price.
How does a patient get onto the waiting list?
You add them from the console when they ring and there is no slot for them. You record which service they are waiting for and when they can come - the second of those decides whether they get offered a Tuesday morning.
Does the first person on the list always get asked first?
Not in the order they signed up. The order depends on how long somebody has been waiting, whether the hour fits when they said they can come, and whether the service matches - because offering somebody a slot they cannot make costs a message and achieves nothing.
Get started
Start with your own week
Create an account, enter your working hours, and mark which of them a patient can see. The first ten practices pay nothing for six months.