How it works
From an empty account to the first reminder
Usually one afternoon, and it does not have to be spent all at once. The wizard asks three things; the rest you set on screens you will be opening every week anyway - so you learn them now rather than twice.
You create an account
2 minutesAn email address and a password, then a confirmation from your inbox. The wizard asks for your practice name, your time zone, and the address your booking page should live at - it suggests one from the practice name and you can change it.
You enter your working hours
10 minutesTick the weekdays, give a range of hours, and mark then and there whether a patient sees that block or only you do. If Monday mornings are to stay yours, this is the moment. Breaks and closures go in later, when they come up.
You add your services
10 minutesA name, a length, a price and a buffer after the visit. The price is not there to take money - none goes through the system - but so that the cancellation report can work out what a recovered hour was worth.
You send the link
5 minutesThe booking page works immediately. Put the link on your own site, in your Google Maps listing and at the bottom of a text message. From the first booking onwards, confirmations and reminders run themselves.
You do not have to remember this order
The "Today" screen carries a list of what the practice is still missing, and it disappears by itself as each thing gets done. You can stop halfway and come back tomorrow - the account works from the moment it exists, the booking page just has nothing to show yet.
Moving across
Patients from a file, not from retyping
A CSV from whatever you use today
Most records systems will export a patient list to CSV. You upload the file and the import screen asks which column is the name, which the phone number and which the email - it does not have to be in any particular format.
Importing sends nobody anything
Uploading patients triggers no message at all. Nobody finds out you changed systems until you book them a visit yourself.
Visits get booked afresh, and that is deliberate
We move patients, not calendar history. Entering the future visits by hand takes less time than reconciling two calendars, and the past ones stay in the system that already holds them.
If you are not sure whether your system will export patients - write, and I will check and answer before you try it.
What happens next, by itself
A confirmation goes out as soon as a visit is booked, and a reminder before it - by email where you have an address, by SMS where you do not. The patient confirms, reschedules or cancels in one tap, and your calendar changes on its own.
When somebody cancels, the hour does not sit empty in silence: it goes down the waiting list, in order and with a deadline to answer. Once a month it is worth opening "Statistics", because it is the only place that shows whether any of this pays for itself in your practice.
How it works
Questions
Do I have to give up my records system?
No. Appointomat does not keep medical records and will not - that is a different regulatory class. You stay with your own system and move only the calendar here. So the two calendars do not fight, Appointomat can read busy time from an external one.
Do I need my own website?
No. The booking page has its own address and works on its own. If you do have a site or a Google Maps listing, you only need to add the link to it.
What if after a month I decide it is not for me?
You export patients and visits to a file, at any time and without asking anybody, and you stop using it. There is no notice period and no conversation to get through.
Will somebody help me with this?
Yes, if you want - but the aim is that you do not need it. If any of these steps requires ringing me, that is a fault in the product rather than in you, and I want to hear about it.
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.