Forward Bookings
Forward Bookings is an incredibly important metric for any allied health business. It measures how many appointments have been booked in advance of the next appointment.
Technical Definition
Every attendance (any patient booked in for a class or consult) has a forward booking number calculated, and it is refreshed every time you update appointments from your PMS (usually daily, or more often).
The formula is as follows:
Find next appointment for this patient in the same profession:
- If it's > 90 days after last appointment: there are zero foward bookings
Otherwise, count all appointments:
- With an appointment date/time after this appointment
- Were not cancelled before this appointment date/time
- Booked in before the next appointment (above)
- Same profession as this appointment (but can be any location!)
This current formula gives us the best insight into 'real' forward booking performance of practitioners. If you have suggestions or feedback on this please get in touch and let us know!
A practical example
| Attendance # | Comments |
| 1 (1 forward booking) | The next appointment was booked in after this appointment finished, but it's within 90 days of this appointment and the booking date is obviously before the appt date of the next appointment |
| 2 (no forward bookings) | The next appointment is 2 years later so definitely not considered a forward booking |
| 3 (3 forward bookings) | Upon completion of this May 21 appointment, 3 bookings were made. All of the booking dates are before the next appt date of May 28th. |
| 4 (2 forward bookings) | No additional bookings made so forward bookings number is reducing |
| 5 (1 forward booking) | No additional bookings made so forward bookings number is reducing |
| 6 (1 forward booking) | Next appointment was booked in before next appointment occured. It was later cancelled but the cancellation happened after date of this appointment. |
| 7 (1 forward booking) | One final appt booked in after this |
| 8 (no forward bookings) | Last appointment for this client ever, so no future bookings |