Surgery postponed, and six booked sessions now in the wrong weeks
A patient is having knee surgery at a private hospital, with a surgeon who refers post-operative rehab to your clinic. The surgeon's protocol sets out what should happen at various points after surgery, and asks for an update at certain review points. Your physio reads the protocol and books the patient's first sessions based on the planned surgery date.
The surgery is postponed by a fortnight. Nobody tells your clinic until the patient rings to say they cannot come to their first session because they have not had the operation yet. Now every booked session is in the wrong week, and the physio has to rework the plan by hand. The surgeon's secretary later asks where the update is.
Why post-op scheduling is hard
Post-operative rehab is timed from an event, the surgery, rather than from the first physio appointment. That date is set by the hospital, can change, and is not in your clinic system unless someone types it in.
Protocols vary by surgeon and operation. They arrive as PDFs or letters. The review points and report requests in them are easy to miss unless someone turns them into dates.
Several people are involved: the surgeon and their secretary, the hospital's booking team, the patient, your reception and your physio. Each knows part of the picture. The patient usually knows first when a date moves, but may assume the hospital has told you.
Clinic systems book appointments in isolation. They do not know that a set of sessions belongs together, relative to a date, and needs moving together when that date changes.
What mistimed post-op sessions cost
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Surgery date changes | Every booked session needs manual rebooking |
| Milestones missed | Sessions not timed as your physio planned |
| Surgeon updates late | Referrer relationship suffers |
| Protocols not to hand | Physio re-reads PDFs before each session |
| No overview | Hard to see all post-op patients and their stage |
Surgeon referrals are valuable. A clinic that reports back on time, in the format the surgeon likes, keeps receiving them.
How we schedule around the surgery date
- When a post-op referral arrives, the patient's case records the surgeon, the operation, the planned surgery date and the protocol document.
- Your physio sets the plan: the sessions they want and when, relative to the surgery date, and the review points where the surgeon wants an update. Common patterns for each surgeon can be saved as templates the physio adjusts.
- Sessions are booked or offered to the patient relative to the surgery date, with the right physio and appointment length.
- If the surgery date changes, every linked session is proposed at its new date for reception to confirm with the patient in one step.
- The physio is reminded when a surgeon update is due, with a report template for that surgeon ready to complete.
- A board shows all post-op patients, their surgery date, the stage they are at and any update due.
The plan, its timing and every clinical decision are your physio's, following the surgeon's protocol as they interpret it. The system only keeps the dates in step.
What changes for the physio team
A postponed operation becomes a quick rescheduling job rather than an afternoon of phone calls. Physios see each post-op patient's stage and the protocol in one place. Surgeon updates go out when they are due. The clinic lead can see every post-op patient at a glance, and surgeons see a clinic that is organised about their patients.
Does this happen with your post-op patients?
- Surgery date changes mean rebooking sessions one by one
- Protocols live in PDFs the physio has to find each time
- Surgeon updates are sent late or when chased
- Nobody can list all current post-op patients and their stage
- Post-op sessions are booked relative to the first appointment, not the surgery