Appointment booking for clinics where most patients walk in Sessions, tokens, walk-in room, check-in and the late patient.

For a clinic where most patients walk in, set up appointment booking around the sessions the doctor already sits, not around fixed minute slots. A booked patient gets a session, a token and a rough time; a walk-in gets the next token; both join one queue once they check in at the desk. Keep a share of each session free for walk-ins, mark the doctor's leave in the book as soon as it is known, and agree a rule for late arrivals that the desk can say in one sentence. Below: how to choose between slots and tokens, how to set up sessions, how much room to leave, how patients can book by phone, WhatsApp or QR, and what to check before you pick a doctor appointment booking system.

Slots, tokens or a mix: which booking model fits?

Three models cover almost every small clinic. They differ in what the patient is promised and what happens to the doctor's time when the day does not go to plan.

At most walk-in OPDs the hybrid is the easiest place to start. The patient gets enough of a time to plan the day, and the doctor never waits for a booked patient stuck in traffic. Pure minute slots work only when visits are of a predictable length and few people walk in. The no-show guide compares sessions and slots from the no-show side.

How do you set up sessions and the doctor's leave?

Write down when each doctor actually sits, then make the booking book match it. Bookings fail most often because the book shows a session the doctor stopped keeping months ago.

1. For each doctor, list the sessions by day: start time, usual end time, and the days off. Saturday evening and Sunday are often different from the weekday pattern.
2. Decide how many booked tokens each session takes, and from which token number walk-ins start (see the next section).
3. Set how far ahead bookings open. A few days is easier to keep than three weeks; follow-ups the doctor fixes at the visit are the exception.
4. Mark the doctor's leave, conference days and clinic holidays the day they are known, so nobody books into them.
5. When a session is cancelled after bookings exist, call or message every booked patient and offer another session before the day.
6. Put the session timings, the days off and the fee on the board at the door, on the clinic's Google listing and in the WhatsApp profile, and keep all three the same.

Telling patients about leave is allowed. The NMC Guidelines on Ethical Advertising and Public Communication (public notice dated 6 October 2026, clause 9.3) let a registered medical practitioner issue a formal announcement that is "factual, non-promotional and limited in scope" about matters including temporary absence, resumption of practice and consultation fees. Keep the notice to the dates and the doctor's name, without offers or claims.

How many bookings should a session take?

Fewer than the session can see. If the book fills every place, the first walk-in of the evening waits behind all of it and the clinic's regulars learn to go elsewhere. There is no published figure for the right split in an Indian OPD; your own counts decide it.

1. For two weeks, count per session: patients seen, of whom booked, of whom walk-in, and booked patients who did not come.
2. Estimate how many patients the doctor can see in the session at their usual pace.
3. Set the booked range below that number, leaving room for the walk-ins you usually see. Add back the bookings that usually do not turn up.
4. Review the split every month and per session. A Monday morning and a Thursday evening rarely need the same number.

A worked example, with made-up numbers: an evening session sees about 30 patients, about 20 of them walk in, and about 2 of every 10 booked patients do not come. Booking tokens 1 to 12 leaves room for the usual walk-ins once the absentees are counted. Walk-ins take token 13 onwards, and fill any booked token that is still empty when its turn comes, under the late rule below. The no-show guide has a weekly sheet for counting this.

How can patients book: phone, WhatsApp or a QR code?

Most clinics end up taking all three. What matters is that every booking lands in the same book, whoever takes it. Two books, one at the desk and one on the receptionist's phone, give the same token to two people by the second week.

WhatsApp and SMS: the sender rules

WhatsApp's Business Messaging Policy (last updated 23 September 2026) says a business may contact a person only if they have given it their number and have opted in to receive further messages from it. If a patient asks the clinic to stop, the policy requires the clinic to respect that. In practice: when a patient books by phone and you want to send the token on WhatsApp, ask and note their yes. Keep booking messages to the doctor, the session, the date and the token; no diagnosis, no reports, no offers.

On the WhatsApp Business Platform, a clinic can create QR codes and short links that open a chat with it, with an optional pre-filled message of up to 140 characters, for example "I want to book for the evening session". The text can be changed or removed later.

Booking SMS from a clinic or its software go through India's commercial messaging rules. Regulation 3 of TRAI's Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 requires commercial communication to use registered headers assigned to the sender. If your software sends the SMS, ask the vendor whose header it goes out on.

Two different QR codes

Do not confuse a clinic's own booking QR with ABDM's Scan and Share. Under Scan and Share, a patient scans a QR code at a participating facility to get a digital queue token, and their details come from their ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) into the facility's software. PIB reported over 23.21 crore ABHA-linked tokens issued as on 18 June 2026. It works only at participating facilities, with the details flowing into the facility's own software. A booking QR from a software vendor or a WhatsApp QR is a separate thing. See the ABDM registration guide.

Why does check-in matter?

A booking is a promise; check-in is the patient actually standing at the desk. Until a booked patient checks in, they should not hold a place in front of the walk-ins who are already in the room. When they arrive, the desk confirms their name and number, takes the fee if the clinic collects before the visit, and puts them in the queue at their booked token or under the late rule.

• Check in from the same screen or register the queue runs from, so the doctor's list is the one list.
• Search by mobile number first. Many families book several members on one phone.
• Mark booked patients who have not arrived by the end of the session as no-shows, not as cancelled, so your counts stay honest.
• A patient who leaves the waiting room for the pharmacy or the car is stepped out, not a no-show. Hold their place.

What do you do when a booked patient comes late or early?

Agree one rule with the doctor, tell patients the rule when they book, and apply it the same way for everyone. Rules that work at many desks:

• Late, token already called: seen after the next two or three patients, not at the end of the session and not immediately.
• Late by more than the session's booked band: treated as a walk-in and given the next token.
• Early: checked in and seated, called at their own token. Early arrival does not jump the queue.
• Doctor late: the desk tells the waiting room and messages booked patients who have not arrived yet, with the new expected time.
• Someone who looks unwell in the waiting room: the desk tells the doctor at once. Who is seen out of turn is the doctor's call, never the desk's.

What should you look for in a doctor appointment booking system?

Whether you use a register, a spreadsheet or software, ask the same questions. A doctor appointment system built for clinics that see only booked patients will show a neat calendar and then leave the desk running a second list for walk-ins.

If you also list your doctors on an online booking platform, the NMC notice of 6 October 2026 (clause 9.4) says healthcare platforms hosting doctors must comply with NMC's ethical advertising norms, must not rank doctors for payment, and must be transparent in how they list. Clause 9.1 treats a hospital website's directory of its doctors, with names, qualifications, specialties, registration details and availability, as patient information, distinct from paid promotion. Keep any booking page to those facts. For more on what the notice allows, see the NMC advertising guide.