Double booking
Updated
Double booking is a scheduling clash in which two appointments occupy the same time slot for the same vet, nurse or room, either by mistake or by deliberate choice.
At a vet clinic, the accidental kind is the one that causes trouble. Two clients arrive at ten for the same vet, one of them waits, the day runs late and everyone after them waits too. It usually happens when bookings are made in more than one place: a paper diary and the practice software, two receptionists on two screens at once, or an online form whose requests are entered by hand later.
Deliberate double booking
Some clinics overbook on purpose, placing a second short visit in a slot where they expect a no-show, or squeezing an urgent case into a full day. That is a clinical and business decision for the practice to make. The point of the term is that it should be a choice, visible on the schedule, rather than an accident.
Common causes of the accidental kind
The usual culprits are familiar. A booking is written down during a rush and entered later, after the slot has gone. Appointment types have the wrong length, so a longer visit spills over the next. A cancellation is not removed, and the slot looks full when it is free, or the reverse. Staff working from different views of the schedule do not see each other's changes in time.
Preventing it
The fix is one live calendar that every booking goes into the moment it is made, with appointment types set to realistic durations. Regular checks of the next day's schedule catch clashes before clients arrive.
An example
At a two-vet clinic, a receptionist takes a booking by phone while the practice software is frozen and pencils it in. Meanwhile her colleague books a walk-in client into the same slot on the other computer. The next morning both arrive together. The team agrees that bookings go straight into the system, and that pencilled notes are entered before the call ends.
How Tilly handles it
Tilly books directly into supported practice software, so it only offers slots the schedule shows as open and the booking appears in the same calendar your team uses. With other PIMS, booking requests arrive as tasks.
For how no-shows interact with your schedule, see the no-shows guide. Related: PIMS integration and waitlist and cancellation fill.