Booking software for physiotherapists in New Zealand

A physio clinic's front desk spends a large part of every day on the phone booking, moving and confirming appointments. Online booking takes much of that away, but only if it understands how a clinic works: initial assessments are longer than follow-ups, each physio has their own week, and new patients need to tell you a few things before they walk in. This guide is for New Zealand clinics of one to many physios.

Initial and follow-up appointments

Set up an initial assessment and a follow-up as separate services, each with its real length. Add a buffer between appointments for notes and room reset. If you only want initial assessments at certain times, such as the start of each session, limit that service to a time window so it only appears then.

Fixed start times suit many clinics, because each physio's day is a grid. Times generated from working hours, service length and buffer suit clinics with more varied appointment lengths.

Several physios, one calendar

Each physio has their own calendar, side by side in one view, with their own working week and days off. A patient who wants to see the same physio every time can choose them by name and is booked with that physio only. When a physio is on leave, block their days and they come off the booking page.

Intake before the first appointment

Intake questions are answered while a patient books: what brings them in, how long it has been going on, relevant history. The answers sit on the appointment, so the physio reads them before the patient arrives. Keep the questions focused; the detailed history belongs in the assessment.

Client records keep each patient's details, history and notes in one place. If you are moving from another system, existing clients can be imported from a CSV file.

Treatment plans and attendance

Rehab works when patients turn up. Repeat bookings let a patient lock in the same time weekly or fortnightly for the course of their treatment, and each appointment can be moved on its own. Email confirmations and reminders, with a link to reschedule or cancel within your notice rules, cut the number of missed sessions.

When the clinic is booked out, the waitlist lets patients put their hand up for a time that frees up.

Holidays and invoices

BookAndGo suggests New Zealand public holidays, so closing the clinic is a click. Tax invoices for a New Zealand business carry your GST number, NZBN and a GST line, numbered in order and sent by email, which is useful for patients claiming through their own insurer.

Getting the clinic online

Most clinics move to online booking in stages. Start with follow-up appointments for existing patients, who already know your physios, then open initial assessments once you are confident the services and hours are right. Book a test appointment yourself on your phone and read the confirmation email before telling patients.

Put the booking button on your website and in the email signature the front desk uses, so a patient who emails to book can be pointed straight to the page. Many patients will still ring, and that is fine: the front desk books them into the same calendar, and every booking gets the same confirmation and reminder emails.

A minimum booking notice keeps late bookings from surprising a physio who has already planned their afternoon, and a limit on how far ahead patients can book stops the diary filling up months out before your roster is set.

Quiet days and gaps in the diary

Gaps happen in every clinic, usually from late cancellations. The waitlist turns some of those gaps back into appointments, and the reschedule link in every reminder email means patients move earlier rather than simply not arriving. Look at your notice rules every few months and adjust them to the amount of time you genuinely need to refill a slot.