WhatsApp · 5 min read · Savina Bansal
Dr. Sharma’s no-shows: rescheduling inside the WhatsApp chat
A reminder tells a patient about the appointment. It does not help the one who cannot make it. How a clinic can let patients move their slot in two taps.
Building the platform this article is about
Dr. Sharma is made up; the clinic is an illustration of how the product works, not a customer story. Picture a dental clinic where the front desk sends reminders the day before, and some patients still do not come.
Often the patient saw the reminder. They just could not make that time, and changing it meant calling during working hours. So they did nothing.
The reminder is the easy part
Ohanvi’s Appointments module sends reminders over WhatsApp. They go out as approved templates, because a reminder is a message the clinic starts, and Meta allows that only through a template. A utility template to India costs Meta’s rate plus the plan’s percentage, from ₹0.12 on Pro to ₹0.14 on Pay as you go.
Moving the slot, in the same chat
The useful part comes next. A patient who replies that they cannot come is offered a reschedule flow: “Pick my appointment”, then “Pick a new slot”. The flow lists the next free times outright, so moving a booking is two taps, not a phone call.
Before it confirms, the move is checked against the clinic’s working hours, its minimum notice and the doctor’s availability. If someone else took the slot a second earlier, the patient is shown the free slots again instead of being double-booked. Ownership is checked against the patient’s own phone number, so nobody can move someone else’s appointment.
The booking shows as rescheduled on the clinic’s schedule, and the reminder follows the new time.
Where the AI agent fits
The flow does the booking, because a booking should behave the same way every time. The AI agent takes the free-text questions around it: “is the clinic open on Sunday?”, “do I need to fast before the blood test?”, answered from the clinic’s own notes, or handed to the front desk when the notes do not cover it.
A medical question the clinic has not written an answer for is exactly where the agent should hand over. More on that below.
Setting it up
Add your services, staff and working hours in Appointments, with your booking rules: minimum notice, how far ahead patients may book. Turn on reminders with an approved template. Then add the reschedule steps to the flow patients reach from the reminder.
Keep reading
Questions this answers
- Can patients reschedule an appointment on WhatsApp?
- Yes, with Ohanvi’s Appointments module. A chatbot flow lists the next free slots, and the patient moves their own booking in two taps. The new time is checked against working hours, notice and staff availability.
- How much does a WhatsApp appointment reminder cost?
- A reminder is a utility template. To India it costs Meta’s rate plus your plan’s percentage, from ₹0.12 on Pro to ₹0.14 on Pay as you go, before GST.
