The Business Case for Online Imaging Bookings

Patient expectations around healthcare have shifted permanently. After years of ordering food, managing bank accounts, and booking flights online, patients now expect to do the same with healthcare appointments.

For imaging clinics, the implications are clear: • Clinics without online booking lose patients to those that have it • Phone-only booking limits your accessible hours to business hours • Receptionists spending 40% of their time on incoming booking calls have less capacity for clinical support tasks • Patients who can't book easily often don't book at all - a lost referral and a patient who didn't get their scan

Online booking is no longer a technology upgrade. It is a patient acquisition and retention tool.

Every online booking is a phone call your team doesn't have to take.

Data from healthcare practices that have implemented online booking shows an average 30-45% reduction in inbound booking calls within the first six months. For a busy imaging clinic taking 80-120 booking calls per day, that's 25-55 calls freed up daily.

This has direct impacts on: • Reception staffing requirements - or the ability to redirect staff to higher-value tasks • Wait times for patients calling about other enquiries • Staff stress and burnout from high-volume phone periods • Cost per booking (phone bookings average 6-8 minutes; online bookings average 90 seconds)

For after-hours requests - which account for 20-35% of online bookings across healthcare settings - online booking captures demand that phone booking misses entirely.

No-shows are one of the most significant sources of revenue leakage for imaging clinics. An MRI machine costing thousands of dollars per hour to operate sitting idle because a patient forgot their appointment is a direct bottom-line impact.

Online booking platforms (including Radly) automatically send: • Booking confirmation emails with appointment details • SMS reminders 24-48 hours before the appointment • Preparation instructions specific to the scan type

Clinics using automated reminder systems report 25-40% reductions in no-show rates. For high-value, longer scans like MRI and CT, this reduction translates directly to revenue recovery - often recovering the full cost of the booking software within the first month.

When your clinic is listed on Radly, it becomes discoverable by patients who are actively looking for imaging services - patients who already have a referral and are ready to book.

This is a fundamentally different marketing channel from traditional GP referral networks: • The patient has already decided they need imaging • They are actively comparing clinics on price, proximity, bulk billing, and availability • Your clinic appears in their results at exactly the moment they're making a booking decision

For clinics in competitive areas, appearing at the top of results for high-intent searches ("bulk bill CT scan Glenroy", "MRI near me Doncaster") is more valuable than general awareness advertising.

Radly clinic profiles with completed information - pricing, operating hours, services, photos, and patient reviews - consistently outperform incomplete profiles in booking conversion.

Online booking platforms generate data that phone-based systems cannot. Through Radly's clinic dashboard, clinic managers can see:

• Total booking requests and conversion rates • Which scan types are most requested • Referral sources - which GPs or channels are sending patients • Time-to-booking and appointment demand patterns • Patient review scores and sentiment trends

This data has practical value: • Identify which scan types have growing demand (potential for capacity expansion) • Track the impact of adding new services or equipment • Identify referring GPs for relationship development • Optimise opening hours based on when patients prefer to book

Most imaging clinics have limited visibility into their patient acquisition funnel. Online booking is often the first step toward data-driven clinic management.

Setting up your clinic on Radly takes less than a day:

1. Claim or create your clinic profile - if your clinic is already in the Radly directory, you can claim it. If not, submit it for listing. 2. Complete your profile - add your services, pricing, operating hours, photos, and contact details. A complete profile converts significantly better than a partial one. 3. Enable online booking - set your available scan types and whether you accept online requests for each 4. Train your team - Radly's clinic dashboard shows all incoming booking requests, referral documents, and patient details in one place

Radly lists your clinic in front of patients who are actively looking for imaging services in your area. The first booking often arrives within days of going live.

To claim your clinic profile or get started, visit radly.com.au/list-your-practice.