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Self-Book: An overview of how to send booking links to patients
Self-Book: An overview of how to send booking links to patients

This article will give an overview of how Self-Book works for inviting patients to book directly into your appointment book

Harry avatar
Written by Harry
Updated this week

What is Self-Book?

Self-Book aims to save healthcare team's time by reducing the manual steps involved in booking patients into appointments.

Using Self-Book, your organisation can choose which patients require a face-to-face or telephone appointment and send these patients a unique link via text.

Invited patients will be able to choose a time slot and day that they are available and, once chosen, they are booked directly into the organisation's appointment book without the need for the patient to call the surgery πŸ™Œ

How does it work?

Firstly you'll need to select the Self-Book icon in the bottom left of your compose message page πŸ“†

Where to find the self-book button in the message compose screen

Then you need to choose whether you'd like to invite your patient to a Face-to-face or Telephone appointment.

selecting the self-book link type, either telephone or face-to-face

For Telephone appointments

Once you've chosen the Telephone option. You'll then need to select the slot type you'd like the patient to book themselves into within your appointment book. Next, you'll get a prompt to let you know that patients will be able to select a time window for their telephone appointment.

The time windows will be displayed as: 8.30am - 1.00pm and 2.00pm - 6.00pm. When you then select Add link, the link will auto-populate in the message with the following message included πŸ‘‡ (Note: you can create a message template for these messages if you'd like to add other details)

the process of selecting a slot-type attaching the self-book link

For Face-to-face appointments

Once you've chosen the Face-to-face option. You'll then need to select the slot type you'd like the patient to book themselves into within your appointment book. When you then select Add link, the link will auto-populate in the message with the following message included πŸ‘‡ (Again you can add a message template for these messages)

selecting face-to-face, the slot-type and attaching the self-book link

What happens next?

Invited patients will receive a text message with a unique (and one-use-only) link. Once they click on their link, they can choose a time window or time slot (depending on appointment type) and date that they are available for their appointment (up to 6 weeks in the future).

Patients are automatically booked into one of the chosen appointment slots in EMIS or SystmOne. (Note: For telephone appointments patients are not given the exact time for the appointment, just whether the appointment is between 8:30am and 1:00pm or between 2:00pm and 6:00pm)

example of EMIS appointment book]

What will patients see?

Patients will receive a text message with their unique booking link. Once they've clicked on the link they will be prompted to enter their date of birth.

patient phone displaying self-book link and date of birth page

For telephone appointments, the patients will be able to choose a convenient time window for the telephone call πŸ“ž

patient phone showing how to select an appointment

For face-to-face appointments, the patients will be able to choose a convenient time slot for their in-person appointment πŸ‘¨πŸ½β€βš•οΈ

patient phone showing the appointment confirmation

The patient will then receive a confirmation SMS with the appointment details

appointment confirmation text

🌟 Note: Self-Book can also be used to invite cohorts of patients to book into a face-to-face appointment. Find out more here. 🌟

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