Tools
When patients call a practice, and how many calls arrive while you are closed
When patients call a practice and when that practice is open are two different timetables. Put one over the other and the gaps show up: calls over lunch, calls after closing, calls on a Saturday morning, all ringing in an empty building.
The tool currently uses placeholder call counts, arranged by weekday and hour. They sketch an ordinary working week, busier in the morning and early afternoon and quiet at the weekend, so the result illustrates the method rather than measuring any practice. Your own call log remains the better record of when your phone rings.
Set your opening hours, including lunch breaks, starting from a typical week if you like, then your monthly call volume. The tool estimates the share of calls arriving while you are closed and the monthly count outside opening hours, and the weekly map hatches the hours you are closed. The rest of the page explains the calculation and where it stops.
How this tool works
The reference timetable distributes placeholder call counts across weekdays and hours. For each of those slots the tool checks whether your practice is open. The closed slots add up to the share of calls that arrive while you are closed; applied to your monthly volume, that share becomes a number of calls.
Each day takes up to three time ranges, to allow for a lunch break or a split day. A range that ends before it starts is flagged and left out of the calculation, and the previous figures stay on screen until it is corrected.
The two busiest hours are those of the illustrative timetable, not yours. They show how calls can bunch up within a working day, but your patients may call at other times. If you already know your own peak hours, your call log confirms them better than this tool can.
The timetable is illustrative and belongs to no particular practice or specialty. A general practice, a dental surgery or an optician will not receive calls at exactly the same hours, and counts drawn from real practices would be more representative. Treat the result as a way to see the shape of your gaps, and our methodology page explains how we choose and date the figures on this site.
Read the two figures together. A large closed share at a quiet practice may mean fewer calls than a modest share at a busy practice. The monthly count estimates calls outside opening hours. Compare it with the cost of covering those hours.
Your monthly volume is on your operator’s statement or in your phone system’s log. Count every inbound call, answered or not: the timetable describes when patients call, not when someone answers them.
Calls outside opening hours are not second-class calls. A patient may ring over lunch because that is their break, or after work in the early evening. What a practice does with that depends on the practice: shift an opening range, cover the line at lunch on a rota, or leave a voicemail message that says when to call back. Public holidays open gaps of their own, and the holiday planner lists the days in the year when your phone would go unanswered.
The weekly map lays out the calls hour by hour, darker where they are busiest. The hours you are closed are hatched, so you can see at a glance whether lost calls gather at lunch, in the evening or on one particular day.
The calculation runs in your browser, from the timetable already on the page. Your hours and volume are not sent to us; all we receive is a signal that the tool was used.
A call that arrives while you are closed need not be lost. With ClinicAll, the receptionist answers, gives your opening hours and takes a callback request for when the team is back; how it works sets out what it says and what it does not do. The security page covers where those requests are handled, and pricing how the price is set. The missed-calls calculator turns to the calls that go unanswered while you are open, and the other tools complete this picture of your front desk.
Questions about this tool
Where do the call times come from?
The current timetable uses placeholder call counts arranged by weekday and hour. They show how the calculation works, not the calls of any real practice, so read the result as an illustration.
Why are the peak hours not mine?
The tool only knows the reference timetable, not your practice’s calls. The two busiest hours therefore come from the placeholder timetable; your call log will tell you which hours are busiest at your practice.
Does the lunch break count?
Yes. A day with a lunch break has two time ranges, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The hours in between count as closed, and the calls that fall there are added to the result.
What happens to a call that arrives while the practice is closed?
Without a receptionist it usually goes to voicemail. With ClinicAll, the receptionist answers, gives your opening hours and takes a callback request that your team finds when it is back.