Should tokens be given at booking or on arrival?

Giving the token at booking lets a patient know their number before they arrive, and a same-day reminder can carry it. Seeing patients in arrival order then keeps it fair if someone booked comes late. HealthRich does both: the token is issued when the appointment is booked, and the queue follows the order patients arrive.

In what order should patients be seen?

Pick one rule and say it out loud: usually arrival order, with booked patients who arrive on time not made to wait behind walk-ins who came later. Whatever the rule, the front desk and the doctor should see the same list.

How do we handle walk-ins and appointments together?

Put both in one list. A walk-in gets a token and joins the queue when they arrive, just like a booked patient who has arrived. Two separate lists, one for booked and one for walk-ins, is where most confusion starts.

Do we need a TV screen in the waiting room?

It helps in a large waiting room, but it is not essential. Many clinics manage with a clear token on the slip or the patient’s phone and a message when their turn is next. HealthRich does not have a waiting-room display yet; on Plus and Premium it sends the “your turn is next” message on WhatsApp.

One token counter, or one per doctor?

HealthRich uses one running number per clinic per day, so token numbers never repeat in the waiting room even when two doctors are seeing patients. The front desk filters the list by doctor.

OPD token and queue system for clinics

We make HealthRich, so the examples below come from how it runs a front desk. The advice works whatever you use, including a paper register.

Why queues go wrong

The front desk usually has the same three problems:

Two lists. Booked patients in one place, walk-ins in another, and nobody sure who is next.
A rule nobody can explain. If token numbers decide the order, a booked patient who comes an hour late can still go first, and the waiting room notices.
No idea where the time goes. Patients wait, the doctor is busy, and at the end of the day nobody can say whether the delay was at the desk, in the consulting room or at billing.

A good queue fixes all three: one list, one rule, and numbers you can check.

Choose your token rule

There are two decisions, and they are separate.

When is the token given?

At booking. The patient knows their number before they come, and the same-day reminder can carry it.
On arrival. Simpler on paper, but booked patients only learn their number at the desk.

What decides the order?

The token number. Easy to explain, but a late arrival with a low number jumps the queue.
The order patients arrive. Fairer in practice: whoever is here first is seen first, whatever number they hold.

HealthRich gives the token at booking and follows arrival order. When a patient arrives, reception marks them arrived, and from that moment they are in the queue.

One list for the whole day

The front desk, the doctor and the owner should all look at the same list. In HealthRich it is the Today list: every patient of the day, with a token, a status in plain words and one next action on each row.

app.healthrich.in/today

Good morning, Kavita

Shree Ortho Clinic · Mon, 12 Oct

Find patient Book appointment Walk-in

Appointments

247 yet to arrive

Arrived today

171 with doctor

Waiting

2Longest 18 min

To bill

2₹400 due

Collected today

₹14,200UPI ₹9,800 · Cash ₹4,400

of ₹14,600 billed · ₹400 pending

All24Booked7Arrived2With doctor1To bill1Due1Billed12

Follow-ups 5

All doctors Name, phone or token

#	Patient	Time	Doctor	Purpose	Wait / bill	Status
5	Sunita Patil52F SOC-2041	10:00	Dr Aditya Joshi	Knee pain, follow-up	₹600	Billed	Book F/U
6	Rajesh Deshmukh61M SOC-0842	10:15	Dr Aditya Joshi	Low back pain, physio	₹400 due	Due	Collect ₹400
7	Priya Shinde34F SOC-2198	10:30	Dr Neha Kulkarni	Shoulder pain	—	To bill	Add bill
8	Vikram Jadhav45M SOC-1930	10:45	Dr Aditya Joshi	Post-fracture review	12 min in	With doctor	—
9	Meera Kulkarni67F SOC-1187	11:00	Dr Aditya Joshi	Knee OA, injection	18 min	Arrived	Send in
11	Arjun Pawar28MNew SOC-2207	11:15	Dr Neha Kulkarni	Ankle sprain	6 min	Arrived	Send in
12	Lata Gaikwad58F SOC-1564	11:30	Dr Neha Kulkarni	Neck pain	—	Booked	Mark arrived
13	Sameer Khan39MNew SOC-2211	11:45	Dr Aditya Joshi	Heel pain	—	Booked	Mark arrived
14	Anjali More47F SOC-1702	12:00	Dr Aditya Joshi	Physio review	—	Booked	Mark arrived

Showing 9 of 24 · tap ⓘ for visit pad, bills and printTomorrow: 19 booked · first 10:00View

The statuses a front desk needs are few: Booked, Arrived, With doctor, To bill, Due, Billed. Each one tells reception exactly what to do next: mark arrived, send in, add the bill, collect the balance.

Walk-ins and appointments, together

A walk-in should take one step: find or add the patient, and they are in the queue with a token. They are not a separate list; they sit in the same queue as booked patients who have arrived, in the order they came.

Phone bookings and reschedules belong on the same screen too, so reception never has to leave the queue to book tomorrow’s patient.

Keep the waiting room informed

Most of the noise in a waiting room is patients asking how long. Three things cut it down:

The token in the reminder. On Plus and Premium, HealthRich’s same-day WhatsApp reminder tells the patient their token number and asks them to arrive 10 minutes early.
A message when they are next. When the doctor starts the visit before theirs, the next waiting patient gets “your turn is next” on WhatsApp, so they can come back from the pharmacy or the car.
Allergies and new patients flagged on the row, so the desk prepares the right file before the patient walks in.

HealthRich does not have a waiting-room TV display yet. If your waiting room is large, a simple announcement of the token is still worth keeping.

Measure the wait

Once the queue is in software, the wait is a number, not a feeling. Look at:

Wait time: from arrival to going in to the doctor.
Consult time: how long each visit takes, by doctor.
No-shows: booked patients who never arrived.
Seen but not billed: patients who left the consulting room and slipped past the desk.

HealthRich has a wait and consult time report and a no-show report, and the owner’s phone shows who is waiting and who was seen but not billed, live.

A checklist for token software

One list for booked and walk-in patients.
A token rule you can explain, and a queue that follows arrival.
Walk-in in one step, without leaving the queue.
The doctor sees the same queue on their screen.
The token number in the patient’s reminder, and a message when they are next.
Wait, consult and no-show reports.
Works on the reception phone as well as the computer.

Where HealthRich fits

The Today list, tokens at booking, arrival order and one-step walk-ins come on every plan. The WhatsApp reminder with the token and the “your turn is next” message come with Plus and Premium; on Essential, reception can send a pre-filled WhatsApp from the clinic phone. See the product, see the plans, or book a demo and bring whoever runs your front desk.

An OPD queue your patients can trust.