Dental Appointment Booking on WhatsApp From Your Clinic Diary
This recipe takes an appointment request on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger or web chat from first message to confirmed slot: the treatment, the slot length, the dentist, an optional deposit and the confirmation. It reads free slots from your practice management system and creates the appointment there. It is the workflow the others build on. Part of the dental clinic workflows.
What happens today
A patient messages at 9.30pm: “hi, any slot this sat morning? I want a scaling, I saw Dr Lee last time”. The front desk sees it at 9am, between a patient checking in and the phone. The receptionist checks the diary, replies with two times and asks whether they are a new patient. The patient replies at lunch. One time has gone. By the time the booking is confirmed, three messages have gone each way and the patient has waited half a day.
Patients who are choosing between clinics often book with the one that replies first.
The flow that works
- The patient says what they want, in their own words. AeroChat works out the treatment, whether they have visited before, the dentist they prefer and the time they want, and asks only for what is missing.
- It maps the treatment to your slot length, for example 30 minutes for scaling and polishing and 45 minutes for a new patient’s first visit.
- It checks the dentist’s free slots of that length in your practice management system, within clinic hours, and offers up to three.
- The patient picks one. For appointments where you take a deposit, AeroChat sends a payment link and books once it is paid. For the rest, it books straight away.
- It creates the appointment in your practice management system and sends the confirmation with the address, what to bring and your registration link for new patients.
If anything in the conversation describes pain, swelling or bleeding, the booking stops and a person takes over (see the symptom handover).
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
When a patient asks to book an appointment, follow these steps.
- Find out which treatment they need, whether they have visited our clinic before, and the day and time they prefer. If they are not sure what they need, book a check-up and consultation.
- Ask whether they want a particular dentist. If they name one, only offer that dentist’s times. If they have no preference, offer any dentist and say who it is.
- Use these slot lengths (examples, change them to ours): new patient first visit 45 minutes, check-up and scaling 30 minutes, filling 45 minutes, wisdom tooth consultation 30 minutes. For a treatment not on this list, book a 30-minute consultation.
- Check that dentist’s free slots of the right length in our practice management system. Only offer times within our clinic hours, for example 9am to 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays. Offer up to three times closest to what they asked for.
- For new patient first visits and appointments of 60 minutes or more, send a deposit payment link of US$30 (example amount) and book once it is paid. Tell them the deposit is taken off their bill. For all other appointments, book straight away.
- Before booking, check the slot is still free in our system. Create the appointment for that dentist with the patient’s name, phone number, treatment, whether they are a new or existing patient, and whether the deposit is paid. For a new patient, create the patient record first.
- Send a confirmation with the dentist, treatment, date and time, our address, a reminder to arrive 10 minutes early, and what to bring. New patients also get our registration form link.
If the patient describes pain, swelling, bleeding, a broken tooth, a lost filling or crown, or a reaction to treatment, stop and hand the conversation to a person straight away. Never give clinical advice. Only quote treatments and prices from our price list. Do not ask for ID numbers in the chat. Reply in the patient’s language.
Change the slot lengths, clinic hours, deposit rule and confirmation details to your own before you paste it.
What to connect
- Your price list and clinic details. Upload your treatments, slot lengths, address, parking notes and what to bring to the AeroChat knowledge base.
- Your practice management system. AeroChat reads each dentist’s free slots and creates appointments and new patient records there, so your diary stays the one record your team works from. Open Dental and Cliniko connect through their APIs: turn on API access in the system’s settings, create or request an API key, and paste it in when AeroChat asks. Keep leave and lunch blocked in the same diary.
- Payments, if you take deposits. Airwallex is built in: connect your Airwallex account and AeroChat sends the payment link and confirms the payment. Money settles into your Airwallex balance, and AeroChat never sees card numbers. If you already use HitPay or Stripe, both connect through their APIs. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
If you run a small clinic from Google Calendar, give each dentist their own calendar, connect your Google account and approve the access.
After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect your practice system, connect payments if you use deposits, upload the price list, then switch it on.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What you still decide
- The slot length for each treatment, and which treatments need a consultation first.
- Whether you take deposits, on which appointments, and how much.
- Whether patients can choose a named dentist.
- How far ahead patients can book.
- Which symptoms stop a booking and go to a person.
AeroChat follows these as written. It does not offer a time your practice system has not shown as free.
The result to expect
Requests that arrive in the evening or on Sunday get a confirmed appointment the same night. The front desk stops relaying times back and forth and has more time for the patient at the counter. Dentists stop finding a 30-minute slot booked for a treatment that needs an hour.
Measure it with your own numbers: appointments booked outside clinic hours, and the time from first message to confirmed booking, for a month before and after you start. In the first week, read a sample of the booking chats and adjust the recipe where a reply was not how you would put it.
Next: reschedule and cancel and appointment reminder replies. See also payment link.
Book your first test appointment
Paste the recipe, connect your practice management system, and message the clinic number from your own phone asking for a scaling slot on Saturday morning.
Start your 7-day free trial. No credit card needed.
On Shopify? Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store.