Updated 2026-10-03 · 2 min read
Closing for a week in August or at Christmas is necessary, but at a clinic it has a cost you don't see: the messages that arrive during the closure that nobody answers, and the treatments that are cut off halfway and never picked up again.
With a little preparation, the closure becomes a quiet week and the return starts with the calendar already filled.
Before closing
Mark the closure in the calendar with its exact dates, so nobody can book those days through any channel. If only one physiotherapist is away, mark their absence and not the whole clinic's.
Leave the sessions of those halfway through a treatment booked for the week you're back. It's the moment when most patients are lost: the one who had three sessions left and nobody called again.
During the closure
What bothers a patient most isn't that the clinic is closed, but writing and getting no reply. A message saying when the clinic reopens and already offering a slot for the return turns an enquiry into a session.
A closed clinic doesn't handle real emergencies: the right thing is to point to the patient's doctor or the emergency department, without booking.
How ClaudIA does it
With the closure days marked in the calendar, ClaudIA knows the clinic is closed: it says so with the dates, doesn't offer those days and proposes the first available appointments after the return. If only one physiotherapist is away, it offers the others, or waits for their return if the patient prefers to stay with them.
When you're back, the team finds in the dashboard the sessions booked during the closure and, in the notifications bell, the conversations that need a person.
Questions clinics ask
Does ClaudIA keep replying while the clinic is closed? Yes. It gives the closure dates and offers slots for the return, without booking on the closed days.
And if only one physiotherapist goes on holiday? Their absence is marked. ClaudIA offers the other physiotherapists' slots or, if the patient prefers to stay with theirs, the slots after they're back.
What happens with a patient who writes with something urgent during the closure? ClaudIA doesn't book them: it tells them to see their doctor or go to the emergency department, and leaves a note for the team.