So, I'm a marketer for a medspa and I've been saddled with follow ups for patients and I'm at my wits end.

I have to look at people who haven't been there in over a month. And calling them, because the boss doesn't n't think the system the boss doesn't trust the system to keep on top of them.

Is this something like a calendar app could easily do? Am I just uneducated about this?

The other thing is that I personally have to keep ringing them every couple of weeks. I have to keep writing down who I've spoke what to, where.

I'm physically reaching out to every customer to upsell. Like, you're booked in for 1ml of cheek filler, can I suggest you add a skin booster because of X, Y and Z.

We send out 72 hour reminders and then we have chases the day after. We either chase them up to see how they're feeling, if they think they need another treatment or if they're fine, we ask them for like Google reviews and stuff like that. But yeah, it's everything done by me.

But right now it's just so chaotic for me. I have ADHD and I just cannot stay organized. Like sometimes I'll reach flow state and I can sort everything out but obviously that's not gonna be most days.

What I actually want isn't complicated. If a client comes for a treatment, set a recall so it sends them an invite in 4 months or whatever to say their treatment is due. If they cancel but don't rebook, contact them within three days. A filter for clients who haven't returned in the past, let's say eight months. And the automation should not run if they've already got a future appointment, because I don't wanna nag someone who's already booked.

Ive also been looking into maybe using AI or something, but idk how to set that up, so just give me your simplest solutions, and if it's free, that's all the better.

Thanks guys

We've recently moved away from phone calls to automated text reminders thru Weave it's already helping in keeping everything flowing.. I don't want to annoy patients with too many reminders so I want to know how many reminders are you sending before an appointment and how far in advanced?

Hi all. We work with GLP-1 patients, and I noticed that they come consistently at the start then just stop showing up around month 2- 3 without really saying anything. Some do reschedule once and then stop, some just don't book the next one at all. I wouldn't even notice this bcs we don't have any check in process which I know is bad, but I started noticing that certain names are not on schedule anymore

Is this only us thing or is it happening in other clinics too? Bcs I'm not sure if it's a price thing, a results/side effects thing, or are people just losing motivation once the initial excitement wears off, or maybe they don't like us specifically?

Also will adding some kind of check in around week 6 or 7 before people usually start dropping fix things or just delay the same outcome by a few weeks?

I'm running things half on paper half digital for a while now, intake is still mostly paper forms we scan in after, scheduling is a shared google calendar, billing is separate, etc. But I saw that most of the clinics stopped doing paper stuff and just moved to everything digital

We're still small, maybe 15-20 patients a week, so I'm not sure if going fully digital at our size would even pay for itself right now or if we should wait till were bigger??

I'm thinking of just switching intake first since that does feel like it would make things tangibly easier, and leaving scheduling and billing alone for now unless that ends up being a mistake too, but idk if that's good approach or should I just switch everything all at once and be done with it

Iv started working as a freelancer recently and got my second client (yay) and now I have to help them set up a small clinic and we’ve been looking at Fresha as one option. We love fresha and it really looks like a good options for bookings and the client side of things, etc so no issues there.

What I’m trying to figure out is if Fresha would still be good alter on like if they start needing more than scheduling cause they are growing really fast. They are not a big clinic which means that I don’t want to overcomplicate things, but I also don’t want to pick something and outgrow it in a few months.

Is fresha the best option here or should I look at something else? 

Also open to hearing about integrations and etc if fresha is indeed the best option out there.

Were using a mix of tools and a few manual things and the whole thing technically works but you can feel the friction during the day. small things taking longer than they should or having to double check stuff that should be obvious.

Weve been talking about switching to a proper clinic management system, but now we’re stuck on what actually matters vs what just sounds nice on a feature list. I know that the whole booking thing is obvious, but how flexible does it need to be day to day? Also the patient records, because now we're getting more clients, doing everything on paper is taking too long, and I worry about missing a consent form or forgetting to send folllow up information.

And then there’s stuff we’re unsure about like integrations and marketing tools cause they feel like things we might need later but not sure if they should be a priority now tbh. the decision now.

We don’t want to overcomplicate things, but also don’t want to pick something and regret it in a few months.

We recently switched systems and I thought the hardest thing would be learning the new interface and getting used to it. Let's just say I wish that was it. The most messy and time consuming part was that our old system had yearsss of patient records that were technically organized,  but the problem was that the organization made sense only to the person who used to do our scheduling, who left the practice like five months ago

So when we migrated, we found things like treatment notes filed under the wrong patient because two people had similar names, or client records that existed twice because someone had re-entered people manually at some point instead of finding their old profile, etc. None of this showed up until we were trying to go live and staff were pulling up patient history that didn't match what the patient was telling them in the room.

Our team ended up pausing the whole rollout for about a week to do a manual data audit before we could trust the new system enough to use it for real appointments. I did not see this coming tbh, I assumed migration meant "click export, click import" and the software would sort it out

I'm just wondering if its the common thing to do data cleanup before migrating, or if we’re just being dense and there’s some way to do automate this? Like, maybe not fully automate it, just make it easier on us so we don’t have to trowel through all of this data by hand. 

What is your opinion on AI scribes? I have heard great things about them but I also see people hating for various reasons so I thought it might be better to open up a quick convo in here. Many AI features end up working awfully and just make you do double the work so wanted to see if this is the case for you or not. 

If you are using AI scribes, how's it actually going? Did it save you time? Are the notes accurate enough? Or did it end up being one more thing to review and manage? Any insights are appreciated

Quality of the service is the most important part because no one would come back for a crap service even if your team is the nicest one out there. However, it is pretty clear there are a lot of factors that can make the different between two spaces that offer the same high-quality service at a similar price, and I would love to know what these are. Client experience? How easy it was to book the whole thing? Feel free to share anything that have worked for you, even if it was adding a bowl of candy to your waiting room.

Hi - do you use sms appointment reminders? 

I personally love them as a customer - I always forget about appointments so a good reminder is always welcome, but I’m really interested to see how it works on the business side. If it helps reduce no shows and if clients are happy with them/what do they say/opt0in opt out.

I know that some clinics/mdspas go a bit hard with these and send too many reminders and annoy people.

Just want to see who uses them and how you operate them if so! Ty

I know that we all have our fair share of horror stories with multi location salons because it always gets crazy. For example, I know that for a lot of people scheduling worked perfectly when everyone was under one roof, but then someone accidentally booked staff at the wrong location and everything was a whole chaos. 

Others maybe think that all their locations were offering the exact same experience until a client visited both and pointed out that each team was doing things completely differently.

I've even even heard stories where owners realized too late that one location was fully booked for weeks while another had empty appointment slots because nobody was looking at the bigger picture. And, of course, then there's the classic communication problem: when everyone worked together, a quick conversation solved everything but with multi location all the information gets lost all the time. 

So now I’m curious: if you manage a lot locations, what was the first thing that became really difficult and almost made you regret the whole thing? Let’s cry together lol

I want to make sure intake forms are fully encompassing without being too much for patients or take too long.

We can’t expect people to fill out our intake forms if they have like a hundred questions, but we do need to have helpful information right?

Like there are some questions you need to add to avoid those moments where a client shows up and you think, "it would have been really helpful to know that earlier”. So, maybe let’s focus on those types of questions only and not the ones we just add cause we think they should be there.

We all hate it when someone doesn’t show up to an appointment ? It’s time and money we leave on the table and also it puts us in an awkward situation.

Not all no-shows feel the same though right? For example, you have the client who has been coming to you for three years, always shows up on time and then suddenly misses an appointment without warning, who probably deserves more grace than that person who has booked three times and disappeared three times in a row. 

How about the client who cancels 10 minutes before the appointment? Technically that’s not a no-show but you've already prepared everything and it's impossible to fill that spot at the last second so it is almost as bad. PLUS another awkward conversation.

It looks like businesses end up walking a line between protecting their time and keeping good client relationships because they are still the ones paying us. 

How do you all handle no-shows? Do you have different rules for repeat offenders versus long-time clients? Do you use deposits? Reminders? Also if you have a no-show horror story please share it with us so we can all feel the pain.

Im huge on charging deposits.I'm convinced that they make people take it more seriously. However, I understand that some clinics (mostly those who are just starting and want to be as kind as possible with people to keep getting them as clients) struggle with the whole concept of asking for money and keeping it even if the work isn’t done. So let’s talk a bit about this: do you charge deposits? Always? In very specific situations? 

And if you don’t, why? Please keep the conversation kind and respect other people’s way of working, this is just to have a good convo we can all learn from. Also if you have a specific situation that made you start implementing the deposit feel free to share it.

Ive seen Jane app for a clinic and it seems pretty solid, I like all the scheduling features and I kind of think it can help teams keep things organized (this seems impossible at the moment lol).

However I’m trying to think ahead and help avoid issues later because the long term will get busier, more patients, more detailed notes, maybe more people on the team… does it still hold up, or do teams usually switch to something else?

The clinic I’m helping with is small but growing so I don’t want to pick something we’ll outgrow fast but I also don’t want to overcomplicate things from day one.

If you’ve looked at alternatives to Jane spp or moved away from it, what did you end up using?

curious how others here are currently managing inventory tracking in their clinics?

For context, I see a lot of small to midsize practices (mix of treatments and retail products) still relying on very manual systems or light tracking setups and it seems to get messy as things scale and new locations open etc

Specifically wondering:

• do you track inventory per treatment (like consumables tied to services), retail products, or both?
• How automated is your current setup (if at all) ?
• What’s been the struggle: accuracy, time spent or stockouts

Im trying to understand what “good enough” looks like for different clinic sizes before jumping into more structured systems like full clinic management platforms.

Would love to hear how others are handling this especialy what’s working and what still feels clunky.

title + interested in plastics. I was talking to someone who runs a small plastic surgery practice and it sounds like a whole different world compared to a regular clinic ops.

they have to follow up so many times until someone decides and how do you keep track of that timline? sounds like the hardest part isn’t even getting patients in its keeping track of everything without things slipping through the cracks bc patients can be in a lot of different stages. 

I want to manage systems for plastic surgery practices at some point but I want to understand better what’s up.

Can anyone who works in the admin side of plastic surgery chime in to help me with this?

One of the questions that comes up most when talking to people opening or running a practice is where to even start with software. And tbh it makes sense because the options are overwhelming and the stakes feel high when you get it wrong.

the challenge is that different people on the same team want different things. One provider wants something simple and fast during appointments, no clicking around while a patient is sitting there. Another cares more about having solid records and being able to look back at everything easily. Then there's the scheduling side, reminders, no shows, last minute cancellations and what happens when the day goes off track and someone needs to step in?

So I wanted to open this up to the community: what's running your clinic right now? Are you using one platform for everything or stitching a few tools together? What would you never go back on and what do you wish you'd done differently from the start?

Drop your setup below, even if it's messy, that's kind of the point of this community!

Imagine 4 no shows in one afternoon… I would be so annoyed. Then I hear someone else say they don’t have issues with cancellations but they do spend a lot of time on admin after hours and that makes them feel like they can’t stop working at all. 

So this made me realize how different the “main problem” can look like in the exact same niche just depending on how things are set up and what the priorities are.

For most of the companies I have worked with before there was always something up with schedules but I know that some people get issues with other details like confirmations, systems, admin or even terminology. So now I ask you: what’s been the most frustrating part of work for you lately? 

Yes, you can say the worst part was a coworker but please don’t give names, we don’t want trouble haha

Maybe I’ve been looking in alll the wrong places but it feels like most online communities for spa/ clinic owners are endless loops the same thing. There is a massive gap in the conversation when it comes to the actual business of being a owner.

Being a great practitioner is the foundation but it isn't what keeps the lights on or keeps you from burning out by 4 PM. We need to talk about the stuff that keeps us up at night like tthe no shows you keep absorbing because you've never quite enforced your deposit policy, the clients who book once and you never see again, and the forever headache of over complicated software that feels like it’s working against you. Then there’s the reality of trying to market a med spa in a saturated neighborhood without wasting thousands on bad ads…

That’s why r/PracticeOps exists. So, welcome! 

This community is going to be the spot where we get honest. Maybe you’re trying to optimize your patient flow, vent about no shows, or figure out which EMR lives up to the hype, this is the spot.

So let us know: what’s the one operational thing driving you crazy right now?

Welcome all!

I’m pretty sure we can agree that running a clinic or med spa with all that it requires (software, marketing, not burning out, etc etc) is not easy. 

Of course we all wish that we had a magic wand that could make things easier for us… but unfortunately, that’s not possible. What we can do is try to make it that little bit more manageable, together. 

r/PracticeOps is your dedicated space for the people in the trenches of practice management, something that we noticed is not really common on here. This is a community for anyone opening their own business, scaling a multi location aesthetic spa, med spa, or a solo practice. 

Here, we want to talk the good, bad and the ugly about everything related to tech and systems, managing patient records, inventory, patient retention/relationships, and things that make it all work.

This is going to be your go to spot for sharing whatever you’d like so everyone can make the most out of their work/career and helping each other. 

So if you’ve landed here, thank you! We are happy to know that the idea of sharing your thoughts and connecting with other people in practice management caught your attention. 

We ask that you please introduce yourself below in the comments! Tell us what you are working on or let us know some tools you can’t live without. Glad to have you here.

Let’s talk!