Solv enables you to seamlessly blend appointments and walk-ins. SmartQueue technology makes your clinic volume predictable and keeps your center running smoothly with continuously updated order in line and availability. This article will explain how this is determined.
Patients are able to view the number of people in line on the Solv booking page prior to arrival, or their mobile waitlist upon arriving for their visit, they will see a combination of patients that have checked in and are already at the clinic in addition to patients with upcoming appointments that, based on their appointment time, are likely to be seen first.
How is the number of people in line and wait list order calculated?
It is dependent on the Total Visit Capacity Per Hour that you have set when going to Settings > Edit > Hours and Availability > Online Hours.
Solv takes the guess work out of blending your patients and looks to add walk-in patients to the next available slot based on your clinic's true capacity on an hourly basis.
The benefits of this logic are two fold:
Transparency: Patients have a transparent view into how many patients are likely to be seen before them should they walk into the clinic. Rather than discouraging patients from coming in, we encourage them to schedule a visit at a time that is more suitable for their schedule. For urgent needs, patients are prompted to visit a nearby clinic within the same brand with fewer patients in their waiting room. Should the patient choose to walk in, they can monitor their spot in line via the virtual waitlist on their mobile device once they arrive so they can enjoy their time outside of the waiting room and return when it is their turn to be seen.
Load balancing: Staff will see that the overall patient wait times and satisfaction improve. By setting an accurate total capacity in their Solv settings, they can see reservations close to their selected time, and reduce the large influx of patients at any given time that lead to friction between patients and the front desk. If the clinic is overly busy and wait times exceed the clinic's goal, Solv helps to manage that throughput and direct patients to come at slower times throughout the day.
Here is an example
Settings Configuration
Let's say your clinic has one provider on staff and can see 4 patients per hour.
The provider prefers to see as many reservations as possible but expects that about 25% of the daily volume will be attributed to walk-ins.
Capacity should be set at Total=4, Online=3.
This means we can see 3 reservations an hour, and expect to see 1 walk-in per hour.
Based on the above configuration and provider preference, let's look at a waitlist.
A patient, Mary, walks in to your clinic
Mary goes online to see if there is an available reservation to have a provider look at her rash.
Mary sees online that there are 5 people in line and no reservations to choose from until later that evening, so Mary chooses to walk in to the clinic.
When she arrives at 12pm, she sees there are only 4 patients in the waiting room (3 have reservations between 12pm and 1pm, and 1 patient walked in before her).
Mary refreshes the mobile waitlist that says she will be seen 6th (after the 5 patients in line).
On her mobile waitlist, she sees 4 patient initials that say "book ahead" and 1 patient initials that says "walk-in". It says "walk-in" next to her initials- MR.
Because Mary walked in at 12pm when the clinic was already at capacity for the hour and had one reservation at the top of the hour, she will be slotted in just behind the next reservation at 1pm.
In the screenshot below, you can see patient Y.A. will be seen before and the next available time for her will be close to 1:15pm.
