The basics
Patient booking lets you tightly control when patients can book and who they can book with. The goal is better control of clinician time, utilization and an improved patient experience.
Patients book from a link you share or is embedded in your booking flow. Your team can also book on a patient's behalf from the schedule.
When booking, Planbase finds clinicians with open, published time that matches the appointment type and any rules on it (state, payor, primary provider, skills, required hosts, and so on). Some types only use windows that were specifically set aside for them on the schedule.
Shifts and clinician availability
In Planbase you control clinicians' bookable time (often called availability in EMRs) via shifts. By default, free time on a published shift is bookable.
More on building and publishing schedules: Getting started with scheduling and Publishing schedules in Planbase.
Appointment types
Appointment types are the kinds of visits people can book, like an initial assessment, follow-up, urgent care etc. Each one has a length, and you choose who is allowed to run it (roles, teams, providers, licenses).
When someone books a type, Planbase looks for free time on eligible published shifts and shows slots of that length.
How to create types and rules: Appointment types and rules for patient booking.
Activities more broadly: Getting started with activities in Planbase.
Rules
On each appointment type you can add rules so only the right clinicians can take the right patients. Common ones include:
State licensure - clinician must be licensed for the patient's state
Home licensure - clinician must be licensed and located in the patient's state
Payor enrollment - clinician must be enrolled for the patient's insurance / payor
Roles and eligibility - who can do this type at all
Primary provider match - keep (or prefer) the patient's own clinician
Capacity and booking limits - how many patients per slot, how often one patient can book the type
Planbase tracks payors and state licenses on patients and clinicians natively. Keep those records up to date; otherwise a free calendar can still show no times for a given patient.
How you can tighten time on a shift
By default, free time on a published shift is bookable. However most clinics want to segment time on clinicians' calendars to ensure coverage across specialty, states, new vs existing patients, service line, etc.
You can break that down further:
One appointment type - reserve a window for only one type (for example initial assessments 9-12)
Availability groups - reserve a window for a group of types (for example all follow-ups in the afternoon)
Examples:
Mental Health appointments only
California patients only
Blocked time - take time off the bookable calendar for non-bookable work (clinical meetings, charting, lunch, admin)
You can also set an appointment type so open times only appear when availability is explicitly marked for that type, instead of treating the whole free shift as open. That is the type's availability rule.
Booking, rescheduling, and canceling
Patients open a booking link for an appointment type, enter details (for example state and insurance), pick a time, and confirm. Confirmation language is that the visit was requested.
Details: Patient booking links.
Your team can book from the schedule with Add Appointment (or from a shift), pick the patient and type, then choose a time. Confirmation language is that the visit was booked. Admin mode is available when you need a more open view of free time (published shifts still required).
Once something is booked:
It shows on the clinician's schedule as an appointment
Open it to reschedule or cancel
If more than one patient is on the same appointment, Planbase can ask whether the change is for everyone or just one patient
If a visit still has a patient but is no longer sitting on a shift (for example after large schedule edits), Requires rebooking flags it so someone can place it again
Full steps: Booking and managing appointments in Planbase.
Requires rebooking
If a clinician's published hours change (call-out, shortened day, deleted shift, etc.), any patient appointments that no longer sit on a shift go into Requires rebooking.
Open the list, pick the visit, and book a new time - same clinician if they're free, another provider, or best available. Once it's on a valid published slot, it leaves the list.
If open times are missing
Check in this order:
Appointment type has a duration
Clinicians have published shifts for those days
Time is not fully blocked, and the type is allowed on that window if you use type-specific availability or groups
Rules still leave an eligible free clinician for that patient (state, payor, role, primary provider, and so on)