Some clinics may opt to only allow patients who have visited the practice before to book certain practitioners or appointment types. This article will outline how this can be adjusted in the HotDoc Dashboard.

Prevent new patient bookings for an appointment type

You may have some appointment types which should only be reserved by existing patients who have visited the practice before. 

There are two ways to adjust this, either through the Appointment Types section to change the overall default setting, or the Edit Practitioner section to adjust this per practitioner.

Appointment Types

1. Log in to your HotDoc Dashboard
   
   
2. In the left menu, click into Bookings then Appointment Types. Select the Edit button for the appointment type you want to adjust:
   
   
   
3. De-select the checkbox next to Allow new patients to book this appointment type and select the green Save button:
   
   
   
   Please note that updating this setting under Appointment Types will not update it for individual practitioners that have already been set up, only for new profiles that are added afterwards.
   
   To update the setting for existing practitioner profiles, please follow the steps below.

Edit Practitioner 

1. Login to the HotDoc Dashboard.
   
   
2. In the left hand menu, click into Bookings > Practitioner Setup > Edit next to the Practitioners name:
   
   
   
   
3. Scroll down to the Appointment Types section and deselect any 'new' appointment types for the practitioner that they do not perform:
   
   
   
   

Prevent new patient bookings for a Practitioner

You may have a practitioner at your clinic who would prefer to only accept appointments from patients who have attended the practice before.

To achieve this, you will need to select the Tell new patients to call the clinic option.

1.  Login to your HotDoc Dashboard.
   
   
2. In the left menu, select Bookings > Practitioner Setup > Edit next to the practitioners name:
   
   
   
   
3. Once in the Practitioner Profiles edit screen, scroll down to the Online Bookings Settings section and select the checkbox next to Tell new patients to call the clinic:
   
   
   
   
4. In doing this, when a new patient goes to make a booking, they will be redirected to call the clinic with the following alert: