The bottleneck isn't the calendar, it's WhatsApp
In a small clinic or a single-doctor practice, most of what arrives on WhatsApp isn't booking: it's the same question over and over. Do you take my insurance? How much is a consultation? Are you open Saturday? Where are you? Do I need to fast? These are fixed-answer questions, already written down somewhere — and they still take up the receptionist, who has a patient standing in front of her.
The cost shows up in two ways. The patient who messages at 8pm and gets an answer at 10am the next day has often already booked somewhere else. And the patient standing at the desk waits while someone types "yes, we take that plan".
An artificial intelligence agent on WhatsApp solves the repetitive part — and, with scheduling turned on, it books the appointment too. It's worth being clear from the start about where that schedule lives.
What the agent answers on its own
The agent answers from the instructions you write and the documents you upload to the knowledge base. In a clinic, what usually earns an instant answer:
- Accepted insurance and what is self-pay, including which plans are currently suspended.
- Prices for consultations and procedures, and payment methods.
- Opening hours, which days each specialist is in, and what happens on holidays.
- Address, landmarks and parking — and the map link.
- Exam preparation: fasting, pausing medication, how early to arrive, what to bring.
- Required documents: insurance card, referral, photo ID.
- First visit: how long it takes, whether a referral is needed, late and no-show policy.
Outside business hours, this is the difference between the patient getting the information right away and the patient looking for another clinic. The agent answers at 10pm on a Sunday exactly as it does on a Tuesday morning.
Booking over WhatsApp
Turn on the Scheduling plugin in the agent's Plugins tab — it's available on every plan, Free included. Register the professionals, each with their own hours per weekday, appointment length and blocked dates, and set the minimum notice and how many days ahead patients can book.
From then on the agent shows the open times, asks who the patient wants to see when there's more than one professional, and books, reschedules or cancels in the conversation itself — always only the appointments of the person who is writing. Two patients can't take the same slot with the same professional.
The schedule lives inside Maya Chats. It does not sync with Google Calendar or with a practice management system, so if the front desk also books by phone somewhere else, those times don't show up for the agent.
What it doesn't do — and why that's on purpose
It doesn't sync with your calendar. Bookings go into Maya Chats' own schedule, not Google Calendar or your practice management system. Connecting your own system is only possible through the API integration on the Business plan, and only if it has an OpenAPI-documented API.
It doesn't give clinical advice. It doesn't interpret symptoms, test results or prescriptions. That isn't a technical limitation to work around: it's how it should be configured.
It doesn't message people who never wrote to you. It only answers contacts who wrote in the last 24 hours. The one exception is the reminder for an appointment the patient booked. There are no campaigns and no mass sending.
That last part annoys anyone who came looking for a bulk-messaging tool, but it protects the clinic: sending mass messages from an ordinary number is the fastest way for WhatsApp to block the front desk line — the one printed on the card and listed on Google.
How to write the agent's instructions
The instructions are the text that defines the behavior. For a practice, a starting point that works:
You handle WhatsApp for [clinic name]. Answer in English, in short, polite sentences. Give opening hours, insurance, prices, address and exam preparation from the documents in the knowledge base. Never interpret symptoms, test results or prescriptions — for any clinical question, reply that only the professional can advise and say the team will pick the conversation back up. When the patient wants to book, cancel or reschedule, offer the open times and book only after they choose one; if insurance authorization is needed first, say the front desk will confirm. Never ask for photos of documents, insurance cards or test results here.
Then upload to the knowledge base what the front desk already answers from memory: the insurance table, the price list, the exam preparation instructions, the no-show and late policy. PDF, DOCX or text pasted straight in. The agent then answers from those files instead of making things up.
Before connecting the real number, use the Test the bot tab: talk to the agent as if you were a patient, ask the ten questions that come in most, and fix whatever comes out crooked. Nothing is sent over WhatsApp in that test.
Health data and common sense
Health data is sensitive personal data under privacy law, and that doesn't change because the conversation happens on WhatsApp. The practice remains the controller of its patients' data; Maya Chats processes the conversations on its behalf. What the platform stores, for how long and which subprocessors are involved is in the privacy policy (in Portuguese).
Maya Chats is not a HIPAA-covered service and shouldn't be treated as one: if your practice needs a Business Associate Agreement, this isn't the tool for that part of the workflow.
The part that depends on you is simpler than it sounds and applies to any tool: the front desk WhatsApp is no place for reports, test results or photos of documents. Instruct the agent not to ask for those and to point people to the right channel. The less sensitive data enters the conversation, the smaller the problem — and most of what patients ask isn't sensitive anyway.
How to go live
- Create the free account in the panel, from your browser. Nothing to install and no card required.
- Connect the clinic's number by scanning the QR code, like WhatsApp Web. The front desk phone keeps working.
- Write the instructions and upload the clinic's documents to the knowledge base.
- If you want the agent to book, turn on Scheduling in the Plugins tab and set each professional's hours.
- Test in the Test the bot tab with the real day-to-day questions. Bookings made there aren't saved.
- Turn the agent on and follow along in the panel. At any moment the front desk replies and the bot goes quiet in that conversation.
The Free plan doesn't expire and comes with 40 AI replies — enough for the clinic to feel whether it fits before paying for anything. Plan prices are on the pricing section, and general questions about the product are in the FAQ.