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Physiotherapy Appointment Diary Setup: Your First Hour, Step by Step

Most diary trouble in a new clinic starts with the setup, not the software. Services get created before anyone has opening hours, the lunch break is never blocked, and the first real patient is booked into a diary nobody has tested. This physiotherapy appointment diary setup follows the order that avoids all three, and it fits into your first hour. At the end there are five checks to run before your front desk takes a single real booking.

By the Clinidiary team · Updated · 5 min read

Before you start: what to have on paper

Pull these together first, so you are not hunting for answers halfway through:

  • The opening hours of each branch
  • The names of the physiotherapists who treat patients
  • Your services, each with a length in minutes and a fee
  • Your usual breaks: lunch, tea, admin time
  • Anyone who will use the diary without treating patients, such as a receptionist or an accounts person

If your patients are still on paper or in Excel, leave them for now. Get the diary right first, then bring your patient list across in one go.

Physiotherapy appointment diary setup starts with opening hours

Set the opening hours of each branch before anything else, because the rest of the diary leans on them. Time outside those hours is shaded as closed. The diary refuses a booking into closed time unless the person is a physiotherapist, owner or manager, and by default the front desk cannot override it. Online booking, if you use it, only offers times inside the branch's hours when the physiotherapist is free.

Enter the hours you are truly open for patients. Do not stretch them to cover your lunch break. That is what blocked bands are for, in step 4.

Step 2: One column for each physiotherapist

The diary shows one column per physiotherapist, and you can look at a day, a week or a month. Add every physiotherapist who treats patients. Each one gets a column of their own, and a booking can be dragged from one column to another when a patient needs a different physio.

Add your receptionist, manager and accounts person as staff as well, each with their own login. On the pricing page only physiotherapists who treat patients are charged, so adding the rest of the team costs nothing.

Step 3: Services that bring their own length and price

A service in Clinidiary carries its own length and its own price. When the front desk picks "Follow-up", the booking is the right length with the right fee, and nobody types either.

Start with the four or five services you sell most:

  • First assessment, usually your longest slot
  • Follow-up
  • Home visit, which can ask for travel time there and back on every booking, so the diary blocks the time above and below the visit
  • Video consultation

Choose lengths you can really keep. A follow-up set at 30 minutes that always runs to 40 will push every afternoon late, and the diary can only protect the time you tell it about. If you change a service's price later, bills already made stay as they were.

Step 4: Breaks as blocked bands

Lunch, tea, admin time, a doctor's appointment, a holiday: put each in the diary as a blocked band with a short memo. A note is never an appointment, so it will not appear as a patient or be billed.

Blocked time is also what repeat bookings are checked against. When you book a course as a repeat (daily, weekdays, weekly up to every four weeks, or monthly), every date is checked for clashes, breaks and time off. Block the break once, and it protects the whole course.

Step 5: A test booking, then five checks

Use yourself or a staff member as the test patient, so no made-up name stays in your records. Click an empty slot, choose the patient and the service, and save. Drag the booking to another time, drag its bottom edge to make it longer, then cancel it.

Now run these five checks:

  1. Closed time looks closed. It should be shaded, and a red dashed line should mark the time right now.
  2. A double booking is refused. Try to book a second patient into the same physiotherapist's time.
  3. Stretching is refused. Drag the bottom edge of one booking into the patient after it.
  4. The front desk cannot book closed time. Sign in with a front desk login and try to book before opening. A physiotherapist, owner or manager can override. Reception cannot, by default.
  5. Repeat bookings respect your breaks. Make a short daily course that runs through a blocked break, and look at how it is checked for clashes, breaks and time off.

If a check fails, fix the hours, service or band behind it before real bookings begin. Afterwards, Manage, then Activity log, then Diary changes shows who changed what in the diary, which is useful for seeing exactly what your testing did.

An hour of setup saves weeks of untangling later. When the diary passes all five checks, take a look at the guide to daily appointment scheduling for how the front desk uses it, and the start-up checklist for what else a new clinic needs in place.

Frequently asked questions

How long does physiotherapy diary setup take?

For one branch with a handful of services, about an hour, and most of that goes on deciding service lengths rather than clicking. Each extra branch repeats steps 1 and 4 with its own hours and breaks.

Can I change opening hours or services later?

Yes. Change a service's price and old bills stay as they were. After changing hours, run check 1 again to make sure closed time is shaded where you expect.

Who can book outside opening hours?

Physiotherapists, owners and managers can override closed time. The front desk cannot by default, which protects you from accidental early or late bookings.

What about patients already booked on paper?

Enter them after the test checks pass. Load your patient list from Excel or CSV under Manage, then Bring your data, and do not run the old system and Clinidiary side by side. A small clinic can move over a weekend, as the moving guide explains.