Currently, when booking in Phorest, the appointment time is shown in the clinic’s time zone for both the clinic and the patient. This creates confusion for patients in other time zones, as they have to manually convert the appointment time, and it’s easy for both sides to make mistakes.

My suggestion:

Allow virtual appointments to display in the clinic’s time zone for staff and the patient’s local time zone for the patient at the same time.

This could be achieved by letting us select the patient’s time zone at booking.

Automated confirmations and reminders would then display the patient’s time in their communications, while the clinic calendar still shows the clinic’s own time.

Benefits:

Eliminates human error when converting times

Reduces no-shows and late arrivals

Improves the patient experience for virtual appointments

Saves admin time for staff when managing bookings across multiple time zones

This adjustment would be a huge help for clinics like ours that regularly serve patients virtually across different regions.