Clinic booking that keeps the records straight

Why we built this for clinics

BookMyVenue came out of IT support work for local businesses. We got the call when the booking system fell over on a Friday afternoon. In the practices we looked after, the booking side and the records side never spoke to each other. Intake sat in a filing cabinet. Consent was a tick someone remembered to get. Nobody could say who had opened a client file, or when a record was due to go.

Nothing we looked at fixed that, and we watched bills grow as a practice did. So we built this one. One published monthly price, and we never take a percentage of what you bill.

Booking never waits on paperwork

Your client books first. The intake link goes out once the booking exists, so a form can never stand in the way of a booking. Nobody gives up halfway through a health questionnaire and takes the appointment with them. An abandoned form costs you nothing. You already have the booking.

The link is built for clinical use. It works once, and it is used up when the form is submitted rather than when it is opened. It travels in a part of the web address that never lands in a server log.

You build the intake form yourself. Required fields, dates, signature fields, and questions that only appear when an earlier answer calls for them. Publishing freezes that version, and an edit starts the next one. When you need to show what a client was asked in March, the March version is still there.

Consent you can still show years later

Four things are kept apart on purpose.

• The collection notice stands on its own. It tells your client what you collect and why. It is not the consent.
• Consent is its own step. It is versioned, and it is never pre-ticked. The record shows which wording your client agreed to, and when.
• Marketing consent is separate again. Agreeing to treatment never signs anyone up to your mailing list.
• For a minor, a guardian agrees, and the record shows who agreed on whose behalf.

A note is never written over

Clinical notes cannot be edited or deleted. When something needs correcting, you write an amendment. It is a new note that points at the original and gives your reason for it. The original stays exactly as it was. Years later the file still shows what was written at the time, what was corrected, and when. That is the shape a record needs to be in when someone asks hard questions about it.

Only the right people can open a record

Owners, managers and treating staff can open clinical records. A read-only login cannot. Exporting is narrower again, owners and managers only. Every refused attempt is written down. A refusal that leaves no trace can’t be audited, so none of ours vanish.

Two more walls are worth naming. No other business on BookMyVenue can open your records. BookMyVenue’s own admin account cannot open clinical notes, and an automated test checks that stays true.

The front desk never has to remember the rules

• Records are kept for seven years from the last service. If the client was a minor, the record is kept until they turn 25.
• A record with no date of birth is never disposable. If the software can’t prove the rule about minors doesn’t apply, it refuses to dispose of the record.
• Disposal takes two steps. You propose it, then you confirm it, and your authority is checked again at the second step. Every disposal is written into a permanent record.
• A legal hold overrides all of it. A held record stays put, whatever the calendar says.

Only the qualified get booked

A practitioner can only be booked for the services they are qualified to deliver. The software refuses anything else, wherever the booking came from. Duration and price can be set per practitioner, because a senior clinician and a new graduate don’t take the same time over the same treatment. Buffers stay with the service, since preparation and cleanup belong to the treatment.

The booking side, in clinic terms

• Deposits at booking, set per service, a fixed amount or a percentage, paid through Stripe’s checkout page. It is prepayment, charged straight away. We don’t place card holds. An unpaid deposit lets the slot go on its own.
• Confirmations and reminders by email and SMS. A reminder survives a reschedule. A message that couldn’t be sent is recorded as skipped, with the reason, and is never marked as sent.
• Clients move their own appointment within your notice rules, up to three times. The deposit and the intake travel with it, because it is still the same booking.
• When a day is full, clients can join the waitlist. A freed slot tells the next matching client about it. It never books anyone automatically.

What the law asks for, and what software can and cannot do

There is no badge on this page. We won’t tell you that software on its own keeps a practice inside the law. The records side of BookMyVenue is built against named obligations in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and NSW’s Health Records and Information Privacy Act. The notes that are never written over, the logged refusals, the retention and disposal rules and the versioned consent each exist because a particular obligation asks for them. Your obligations stay yours. Our narrower job is to make the record keeping hold up when someone examines it.