How an AI booking assistant works for a small practice

The RafaNest AI booking assistant is a chat window on your clinic website that answers scheduling questions at any hour. Visitors can ask about your services, prices and open times, and patients who are signed in can book, reschedule or cancel by chat. It is an administrative helper and it does not give health advice. This guide explains what it does, what it does not do and how it fits with the rest of your booking setup.

What a visitor can do

A person who is not signed in can ask what you offer, how long each service takes, what it costs, where you see patients and which times are open on a given day. The assistant reads your real services and calendar, so it only quotes what you have set up. It shows times in your clinic time zone and it does not invent services or slots.

An anonymous visitor cannot book through the chat. The assistant tells them to sign in or use the Book now button. That keeps booking tied to a verified person, in the same way as your booking page, where a new patient confirms with a code sent to their email.

What a signed-in patient can do

A patient who is signed in can ask the assistant to book an appointment, list their upcoming visits, move one to another time or cancel it. The assistant confirms the service and the time before it acts. It uses the same booking rules as the booking page, including your minimum notice, and cancellations follow your cancellation and refund policy. When a booking is made the patient receives the usual booking confirmation.

Where it stops

The assistant is limited to appointments, hours, locations, prices, cancellation policy and how to use the system. If someone describes a symptom or asks what treatment suits them, it says it cannot give medical information, points them to you and offers to book or take a message. If someone describes an emergency, it tells them to call 911 or see a doctor straight away. It also never quotes a service as effective for a condition. A clinic can write its own service descriptions, and the assistant repeats them as written.

How it relates to no-shows

The assistant makes it easier to find and book a time, but it does not send reminders. Reminders are a separate feature. RafaNest emails patients a reminder roughly a day before the visit, with a link to confirm or change the time without signing in, and to cancel where your settings allow it. Text message reminders go only to patients who agreed to receive texts, because US law requires that consent. Clear policies and easy rescheduling help too, so pair the assistant with a written no-show and late cancellation policy and read our guide to reducing no-shows with reminders. We do not quote a no-show reduction figure because we have not measured one.

Privacy and availability

The assistant runs on Amazon Bedrock, inside the AWS environment that RafaNest uses under its Business Associate Agreement. What a signed-in patient types is processed by the model on Bedrock, and RafaNest records that disclosure. Ask patients not to put health details in chat, since booking does not need them. The assistant is included on every plan, including the free Starter plan, and it appears on your public site once it is switched on for your clinic. Practitioners also have a separate AI Assistant in the clinic admin that can help set up hours and services, find a free time or book for a patient.

Getting the most from it

• Set up at least one location, one service with its length and price, and your weekly hours, so the assistant has something to offer.
• Keep service descriptions short and factual, because the assistant quotes them.
• Test it yourself as a visitor and as a signed-in patient before you share your site.

To see how booking works end to end, read how online scheduling helps your practice.