Appointment requests

Patients can ask for an appointment from the patient portal and, with the WhatsApp module, by messaging your clinic. Each request waits in Patient Portal › Appointment Requests until someone approves or declines it.

Who can do what

To…	You need
See requests	Approve appointment requests
Approve or Decline a request (approving books an appointment)	Approve appointment requests, Create appointments and Update appointments, all three

By default the Manager role has all of these.

Everyone with Approve appointment requests gets a live New appointment request notification when a request arrives. The sidebar entry shows how many are Pending.

The request list

Each request shows who asked, the preferred date and time, the reason and the patient’s notes, and its status: Pending, Approved or Rejected.

• Search by patient name, reason or notes.
• Filters: request status, Patients, Updated by (who decided), linked or unlinked requesters, and dates.
• Export downloads the list as a CSV file.

Open a request

The request page shows:

• Request details: preferred date and time, the Preferred practitioner if the patient chose one, reason for the appointment, and the patient’s notes,
• Requested by: the person’s name and where it came from (Patient portal, or a portal account number, or WhatsApp),
• Patient: the patient record it’s linked to, marked Linked, or Not linked to patient. If it isn’t linked, Meddesk suggests patients with the Same phone number and Portal accounts with this number.

Contact details of the requester are only shown to staff with Read patient contact info.

Approve and book

1. Select Approve.
2. Book for: choose the patient. Patients with the requester’s phone number are listed first. Pick Another patient… to search. If the person isn’t a patient yet, select Register a new patient. The new-patient form opens already filled in with their name, phone and email.
3. Appointment time: it starts as the requested time (“Requested for … Book that time, or move it if needed.”). If you change it, the patient will be told the new time in the confirmation message.
4. Clinician (optional): who will see the patient. The patient’s preferred practitioner is already selected, and you can change or clear it. Clinicians with an overlapping appointment, or who aren’t available in their schedule, are marked with a warning.
5. Optionally add Staff notes.
6. Select Approve and book.

Meddesk then, all in one step:

• books a Consultation appointment with Medium priority at that time, with the clinician you chose, and marks it Confirmed,
• marks the request Approved and links it to the appointment (View appointment),
• adds the patient’s reason and notes to the appointment as notes, when the Notes module is on,
• tells the patient the request was approved, then sends the usual appointment confirmation with the date and time.

If anything stops the booking, for example the time is on an earlier day and your clinic doesn’t allow past-date appointments, nothing changes. The request stays Pending, the patient isn’t told anything, and you see why, so you can fix it and try again.

You see Appointment request approved and appointment created.

Decline

1. Select Decline.
2. Write the Reason shared with the patient.
3. Select Decline request.

The request is marked Rejected and the patient is told it was declined, with your reason.

Only pending requests can be approved or declined.

Rules patients see when requesting

Patients can only ask for times within your appointment request hours, not in the past, at most 90 days ahead, and only one pending request per day.

When patients may choose a practitioner and they pick one, that practitioner’s working hours, time off and existing appointments decide which times are offered instead of the request hours. If the time is no longer free when they submit, they’re asked to choose another.