A patient is referred for patch testing. She books what she assumes is an appointment, and discovers on arrival that she needs to return twice more that week, cannot get her back wet for several days, and should have stopped a medication a fortnight ago.
Two of those three make the test unusable. All of them were published somewhere she never read.
Step 1: say plainly that it is more than one visit
On the booking page, before anything else. The number of visits, which days and roughly how long each takes. Patients cannot plan work and childcare around a process nobody described.
Step 2: publish the weekly schedule
Patch testing often runs to a fixed pattern of days, which means it can only start on certain days of the week. Saying which days lets a patient plan rather than discover.
Step 3: publish the preparation instructions prominently
What to stop and when, what to avoid on the test area, and how far in advance. Send them at booking and again before the appointment, because a patient who prepared wrongly has wasted everyone's time.
Step 4: be explicit about keeping the area dry
No swimming, no showering the back, no heavy exercise. This is the instruction patients most often underestimate and the one that most often invalidates a test.
Step 5: ask patients to bring their own products
Cosmetics, creams, workplace substances and anything they suspect. Testing a patient's own products is often where the answer is, and they need telling in advance.
Step 6: capture the occupational history at booking
What they do, what they handle and whether the problem improves away from work. It shapes what is tested and is much better gathered before the appointment.
Step 7: explain what happens during the visits
Application, the days in between, the readings and how long each appointment takes. People imagine something uncomfortable and are relieved by an accurate description.
Step 8: never interpret anything
Not a reaction the patient describes, not a photograph and not a result. Readings are made by a clinician alongside the patient's history, which is the boundary throughout skin clinic appointment enquiries and what to capture.
Step 9: explain what happens after results
Written results, what they mean for avoidance, whether further testing is needed and what support exists. The result is the beginning rather than the end for most patients.
Step 10: publish the fee structure
Whether it is a single fee for the whole process or per visit, and what is included. Patients expecting one charge are surprised by three.
Step 10b: say how long the wait is
Patch testing clinics often run weekly or fortnightly and fill months ahead, and a patient referred with a rash they have had for a year wants to know whether this means March. Publishing the realistic wait, and whether there is a cancellation list, lets someone decide between waiting and looking elsewhere rather than sitting in silence assuming they have been forgotten.
Step 11: keep it separate from cosmetic work
It is medical work with a different pathway, which is the routing argument in cosmetic versus medical dermatology enquiries separated.
Step 12: multi-visit processes need careful capture
The pattern is the same as in fertility testing and assessment enquiries, and checking your answers against real enquiries is covered in testing your assistant with real past enquiries.
Getting started
Publish the visit schedule, preparation instructions and fees, then capture bookings and history at any hour, which takes minutes with install the widget and train your bot. SpideyChat for clinics answers from your published pages and never interprets a result.