AI for medical practices · Booking
Patient booking on WhatsApp, straight into the practice diary.
IndunAI is AI appointment booking for doctors in South Africa. Patients book, move and cancel their own appointments on WhatsApp or your website, at any hour, into the diary your desk already works from. New patients get your forms before they arrive, reminders go out on their own, and the server checks every slot before anybody is offered it.
No sign-up needed. The live medical demo is a fictional practice running the same assistant and booking engine a real one gets. Book a follow-up, move it, cancel it, and watch the practice's own diary change beside the chat.
online, replies in seconds
Hi, can I book a follow-up for my son this week?20:41
Of course. Who is this appointment for?20:41
Thabo NkosiThursday 08:40 or 15:20 are open for a follow-up with the doctor. Which suits you?20:42
Thursday 15:20Booked for Thabo, Thursday 15:20. You will get a reminder before the appointment, and you can move or cancel it here.20:42
An illustration. The names on the buttons are the patients already on this number's record, and the times come out of the practice's own diary.
How a patient books
First visit or follow-up, and the right length for each.
Most booking tools treat every appointment as the same half hour. A practice does not work that way. A new patient needs a longer slot and a file opened, a follow-up is short, a procedure has its own length, and some things cannot be booked in a chat at all. The assistant books around all of that because each of those facts is a setting the practice owns, not something the AI is left to guess.
The first question is the right one
Where the practice asks whether somebody has been before, that question comes first and is answered with a tap. A service can also say for itself what kind of visit it is, so a patient who picks Follow-up is not asked whether they are new.
Each service keeps its own length
Every service carries its own duration, and it is offered only on start times that suit it, so a 45-minute procedure is never squeezed into a 15-minute gap. A service can also ask for its own minimum notice.
The server claims the slot
Availability is read from the practice's calendar, per practitioner. When a patient picks a time, the booking is a claim the database grants once, so two patients can never end up in the same slot. The AI proposes the time; the software decides whether it is still free.
A confirmation worth keeping
The confirmation names the day and time, and says what the appointment costs and how long it takes. A patient who has said their medical aid is paying is not quoted a private fee they will never be asked for.
Moving or cancelling works the same way, in the same chat. The assistant names the appointment it is about to change before it changes it, a patient who already has a booking sees Manage my booking on the menu instead of Book a consultation, and a cancellation it cannot match to a booking goes to your desk rather than being guessed at. Where a practice wants the patient's file found before any times are offered, it can switch on one message that asks for name and surname plus an ID number or date of birth, and nothing else. A name already on the number's record is offered as a tap rather than asked for again. For how the calendar side works in detail, see AI booking, without double booking.
Before the visit
New-patient forms and medical aid details, before they arrive.
A new patient has to give the practice a set of details before the first appointment is worth much: who the main member is, the medical aid, the plan and membership number, the dependant code. Collected at reception, it eats the start of the consultation. Collected in a chat, one message at a time, it leaves special personal information scattered across a conversation. So the assistant does neither.
The form rides the confirmation
When a first-visit patient is booked, the practice's own new-patient form goes out as a button on the confirmation. The patient fills it in on their phone, and it comes back as one PDF attached to that booking. A patient who has been before is not sent it.
Medical aid on the form, not in the chat
A new patient is not asked for their scheme in the chat, because the form collects it. The ID number and medical aid details land in one place, the form, instead of in every copy a chat message makes.
What to bring, said unasked
A first-visit patient is told on the confirmation what to bring, in the practice's own words for that service, and a service can name one extra form its new patients need. A form already on file is not sent twice.
The practice writes the form's questions and the sentences that go with it. The desk can also send any form by hand to a chosen patient, from the diary or the conversation, through the same button the assistant uses. The reasoning behind keeping this information out of the chat is on POPIA and an AI receptionist.
Reminders and attendance
Reminders that go out on their own, and a "No" that frees the slot.
A missed appointment is the most expensive thing that happens in a diary and it happens quietly. Two things help: reminding people on the channel they actually read, and finding out early enough who is not coming to give the time to somebody else.
Reminders at the hours you choose
The practice sets when reminders go, for example the day before and again two hours before, up to four stages. A patient who booked days ago is outside WhatsApp's 24-hour window, so the reminder goes as an approved WhatsApp template, which is what lets it arrive at all.
Confirm, with a Yes and a No
Where the practice switches it on, the patient is asked to confirm a set time before the appointment, with two buttons. A No cancels the booking and frees the slot. Silence cancels nothing: after the time the practice sets, the desk is told who has not answered, with their number, so a person can phone.
A freed time goes to somebody waiting
A patient who could not get a time can ask to wait for one from the chat. When a slot frees up, it is offered to the first person waiting, one at a time. This is an opt-in the practice switches on.
The general case for all of this, outside medicine, is in cutting no-shows.
What stays with the desk
Phone-only appointments stay on the phone.
Some appointments are not a chat's to book. An ECG, a lung function test or a procedure that needs a conversation with the sister first may need the desk to arrange it. The practice ticks those services as phone-only. They drop off the menu the assistant offers, the assistant says plainly that the practice arranges them by phone and gives the practice's own number, and the diary refuses them from the chat even if somebody asks by name, including when moving an existing booking.
Nothing else about the service changes. It stays on the diary board, in the desk's own entry list and on reminders. Only the chat stops taking the booking.
Families
Dependants booked from one number.
In South Africa one phone often books for a whole family, the way one medical aid covers one. The assistant works the same way: whoever holds the number is the main member, and anybody else booked from it is a dependant with their own record, their own name, their own appointments and their own history.
Who is this appointment for?
Where a number already holds more than one patient, the name question becomes a choice: each name as a button, plus Someone else. A mother booking for her child never overwrites her own name.
Each patient gets their own form
A dependant booked for a first visit is sent their own patient information form, and the Customers tab lists each dependant under their main member. Messages still go to the one number.
Closed days
Away dates and public holidays close the diary.
A diary that offers a time on a day nobody is in is worse than no diary. Two things shut it.
The practice's own away dates
The practice enters each closure on its own Away tab: the long weekend, a conference, December. The assistant offers no time inside any of them. The practice chooses whether patients are told about the closure in its own words, and, closure by closure, whether scripts and telephone consultations carry on while the rooms are shut.
South African public holidays
A public holiday is not read as its weekday. Heritage Day on a Thursday is closed, not Thursday's hours, unless the practice says it opens on public holidays.
FAQ
Fair questions.
Can patients cancel or move their own appointment?
Yes, in the same chat they booked in. The assistant names the appointment it is about to change before it changes it, and a patient can only move or cancel their own booking: the server checks who the booking belongs to rather than taking the chat's word for it. A cancellation the assistant cannot match to a booking goes to your desk instead of being guessed at.
Does it know which appointments need longer?
Yes, because the practice tells it. Every service carries its own length and is offered only on start times that suit it, and availability is read per practitioner, so a long procedure is never booked into a short gap. A service can also carry its own minimum notice, and one the practice arranges by phone is never booked in the chat at all.
Can it send reminders the day before?
Yes. The practice sets the reminder times, for example the day before and again two hours before, up to four stages per booking. Reminders go on WhatsApp as an approved template, so they arrive even when the patient booked days ago. Where the practice switches it on, the patient can also be asked to confirm with a Yes or No, and a No frees the slot.
Can it book for a child or dependant?
Yes. Whoever holds the number is the main member, and anybody booked from it is a dependant with their own record, name and appointments. Where a number already holds several patients, the assistant asks who the appointment is for, with each name as a button and Someone else beside them.
Does it integrate with my practice software?
Not with another company's practice management or billing software today. It books into Google Calendar, a CalDAV calendar or GoHighLevel, and the practice can also work from the dashboard's own Diary board. IndunAI's own practice side, switched on per practice, adds the patient file, clinical notes and ICD-10 and tariff coded accounts, but it does not submit medical aid claims electronically yet. If your diary lives only inside your own practice software, talk to us: a connection to it would be a separate build, scoped and priced per project.
Book an appointment as a patient would.
The live medical demo is a fictional practice with an invented diary. Book a first visit, then a follow-up for a child, then move one. It takes two minutes and needs no sign-up. When you want it on your own number, book a demo and we will go through your services and your diary with you. The assistant is from R1 450 a month including VAT for up to 300 conversations, plus a once-off R2 500 setup; fully managed is R4 995 a month with setup included; WhatsApp's own message fees are Meta's and are separate.
The rest of the medical guides, and the general ones they build on.