How long should a first osteopathy consultation be?

A first osteopathy consultation needs more time than a follow-up, because you take the full history, examine the patient and explain your findings before you start treating. An hour for a first visit and 45 minutes for a follow-up is a reasonable starting point. The key is to make the first visit its own service, with its own longer slots, so a new patient never lands in a follow-up slot that's too short. Then measure how long your first visits really take, and adjust.

With a patient you've never seen, you start from nothing. Before any treatment, you need to understand why they came and whether osteopathy is the right answer for them today. That takes time, and it's time you can't cut without cutting corners.

A follow-up skips much of the first half. You already know the patient, you check what changed since last time, and the session goes mainly to treatment.

These lengths are a place to start, not a rule. Some osteopaths want longer for a first visit, especially with complex histories or patients who need things explained twice. Others work faster. What matters is that the length you open matches what you actually do.

For two weeks, write down when each consultation really starts and ends, and whether it was a first visit or a follow-up. Include the minutes you spend writing notes and airing the room between patients. If your first visits keep running ten minutes over, your next patient is waiting every time a new patient comes in. Lengthen the first-visit slots rather than rushing the history.

The same check works in the other direction: if follow-ups regularly end early, you might be able to shorten them and open an extra slot in the day.

On Book, each consultation type is a service with its own price and an optional description, and you open slots for each at the length it takes. Create a "First consultation" service with one-hour slots, next to your standard consultation with 45-minute slots. The patient picks the consultation first, then one of its free slots.

Use the description to help patients choose. Say who the first consultation is for, in your own words: someone who has never been to your practice, or who hasn't been for a long time, or who comes for a new problem. You set the rule; the description makes it clear.

The description is also the place to say what to bring: recent imaging or reports, a list of medication, comfortable clothes. For infants, the health record book if you want to see it.

Slots of different services can overlap, and one booking doesn't block the other service's slot at the same time. So decide where first visits go, rather than opening first-visit slots over the top of your follow-ups. A simple approach is to reserve a few fixed hours for new patients, for example the first slot of each morning and one in the afternoon, and fill the rest of the day with follow-up slots. Repeat the pattern by weekday so you only set it up once.

If you want new patients to find a place quickly, spread those first-visit slots across the week instead of grouping them on a single day. Patients who book because something hurts are often looking for an appointment soon.

It will happen: a new patient books a 45-minute follow-up. You get an email for each new booking, and the form includes an optional note where patients can say why they're coming. If you spot a first visit in a follow-up slot, contact the patient, cancel that booking from your bookings list and book them into a first-consultation slot yourself from your calendar. Book doesn't send an email when you cancel or move a booking, so tell the patient directly.