Initial exams

After Penciled launched its plan of care scheduling system, many clinics asked for a way to do the same for new patients — to automate the first step in every patient’s journey: the initial exam.

What was the process before Penciled?

Before this feature, scheduling initial exams was one of the most time-consuming and failure-prone tasks for front offices.

After receiving a fax referral, an appointment request form, or a phone call from a new patient, staff would collect all of the patient’s details and then begin the long process of calling them back to book their first visit. But patients often didn’t answer — or it wasn’t a good time. Some were called two, three, even five times before an appointment was confirmed.

The delay didn’t just waste time — it often meant losing the patient entirely. By the time the front office reached them, many had already gone to another clinic that could get them scheduled faster.

Even for patients who did respond, the process required multiple manual steps, verification checks, and coordination between systems — all before care could even begin.

How does Penciled solve this?

Penciled’s initial exam scheduling system lets front offices send a secure booking link directly to patients — no phone tag, no delays.

As soon as the patient’s information is confirmed, the staff simply clicks “Book Initial Visit.” The patient immediately receives a text message with a link to schedule their initial exam in real time.

From there, patients can browse open times, pick the provider they prefer, and confirm their visit — all within seconds. Clinics that previously had to call multiple times to get one patient scheduled now do it with one click.

This system uses the same clean, self-serve interface that clinics loved from the plan of care scheduler, making it familiar for staff and intuitive for patients. And because new patients enter Penciled’s ecosystem right away, their follow-ups are automatically scheduled once the plan of care is created, and they can join waitlists or receive texts about earlier openings — all without any additional setup.

The result: faster patient onboarding, fewer missed opportunities, and more filled evaluation slots without extra front-office effort.

Shoutout

Penciled’s initial exam scheduling system was inspired by the operations and growth teams at Marketplace Physical Therapy and Wellness Center in Los Angeles, California, who helped shape the workflow and interface to mirror the plan of care experience while streamlining new patient scheduling.