Orthoptic exercise sessions: booking the whole series

Book the whole series of exercise sessions at the start, at a fixed day and time each week, from your calendar, and add a review session at the end. Orthoptic exercises work through regularity: a series of short sessions at a steady rhythm, with practice at home in between. If the patient has to find a slot each week, the rhythm breaks. With the dates set together at the end of the assessment, the patient has every session in their calendar and you keep the series on track.

Lengths are examples; the number of sessions is what you prescribe. On Book, each step is a service with its own name, description and price, and each slot belongs to one service with its own start and end. Keep exercise sessions as their own service, so short sessions never take a slot meant for an assessment.

Agree a weekly time with the patient: Tuesday 17:20 for a schoolchild, Friday 8:30 for an adult before work. Create that slot once and repeat it on the chosen weekday until the end date of the series. Then book the patient into each date from your calendar: first and last name are required, and if you enter their email, they receive a confirmation for each session with a calendar file. A slot with one place disappears from your public page once booked.

Exercise sessions are short, so a busy afternoon can hold several of them back to back. Leave a few minutes between sessions for notes and to explain the home exercises, and group them in blocks rather than scattering them between long assessments. Don't open other services in the same room at the same time: Book doesn't stop slots of different services from overlapping.

The note appears in the patient's calendar file too, so keep it to planning; clinical details belong in your records.

Progress also depends on what the patient does at home. Book doesn't send exercise sheets or messages, so hand them over at each session, on paper or by your usual email. What Book can do is keep the next session visible: each confirmation's calendar file puts the date in the patient's phone, a quiet nudge to practise before coming back. Keep a few minutes at the end of each slot to check the home routine and adjust it; that time belongs in the slot length, not squeezed from the next patient.

A missed week slows progress. Patients can't reschedule online, so ask them in the service description to call or message you if they can't come. If you have another free slot that week, reschedule the session from your bookings list and confirm the new time yourself, since Book doesn't email patients about changes. If not, add a session at the end of the series and move the review.

Book doesn't send reminders. For children, a calendar file in the parent's phone is what keeps the weekly habit; for adults, the same.

Book the review when you book the series, on the week after the last session, so the date is set from the start. At the review, decide whether a later check is needed and book it before the patient leaves, or let them book it online when the time comes if you open check slots.

Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited bookings and services, no commission, no contract. It doesn't handle prescriptions, records or payments.