Holding capacity for patients who need to be seen today without wrecking the schedule.
Same-day capacity is either hoarded and wasted or released and immediately consumed by routine visits. Both failures come from the same cause: the rule about who qualifies lives in someone's head rather than in the booking logic.
What goes wrong today
Same-day capacity is either hoarded and wasted or released and immediately consumed by routine visits. Both failures come from the same cause: the rule about who qualifies lives in someone's head rather than in the booking logic.
What good looks like
Explicit criteria for what qualifies as same-day, applied consistently at the point of booking, with unused capacity released on a schedule rather than by memory.
Written criteria applied at booking time
Automatic release of unused hold slots
Triage questions that decide urgency consistently
Escalation when nothing suitable is free
What to measure
Agree these before changing anything, so the effect is visible rather than argued about.
Same-day slot utilisation
Share of same-day slots used by routine visits
Patients diverted to urgent care
Where we stand: Available now
Applied as part of call-handling booking rules today.
Rollout checklist
Document how this is handled today, and by whom.
Put a number on the hours or dollars involved.
Decide which cases must always reach a person.
Agree the metrics you will judge success on.
Frequently asked questions
Do you solve this today?
Applied as part of call-handling booking rules today.
How do we know if this is our biggest gap?
The Front Desk Opportunity Scan ranks this against every other area using your own volumes.
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