An ENT Clinic With an Audiologist: Walk-in Consults and Booked Hearing Tests on One WhatsApp Number

Two rooms, two rhythms

An ENT consult takes anything from three minutes for a wax removal to fifteen for a vertigo history. That is a queue: patients come when they are unwell and are seen in order. The audiologist works differently. A pure tone audiogram with impedance takes about twenty to thirty minutes in the booth, a hearing aid trial longer, and the booth can hold one patient at a time. That is a diary.

Clinics that force both into one system get the worst of each. Put the audiologist on the token line and patients who travelled for a hearing test wait behind walk-in colds. Put the ENT doctor on fixed slots and the slot grid is wrong by 10:30. The answer is to let each room run its own way.

Set up two departments on one number

In TOKENN each department chooses how patients join. The ENT department stays on tokens: patients message the clinic or scan the QR, get a number, see their place and come when two are ahead. The audiology department runs on appointments: thirty-minute slots, say 10 to 1 and 4 to 7, and how far ahead patients may book.

Each department gets its own QR poster and short link. The audiology QR goes on the hearing aid brochure, the school screening letter and the clinic's Google listing; the ENT QR stays at the reception. A patient who messages without a QR is shown the two departments and picks one. Both run on one WhatsApp number and one dashboard, and the ENT clinic queue management page covers the rest of the ENT setup.

From the consult room to the booth and back

The doctor examines a patient with a blocked ear and wants an audiogram today. Instead of sending them to the back of the line afterwards, reception taps Send for tests: the patient's token is parked, the next patient is called, and the waiting-room TV can show them under Waiting for reports. The audiologist fits the test in between booked slots.

When the patient comes back with the audiogram, reception taps them back in and they rejoin the doctor's line as a review on the same token, near the front, because a two-minute look at a report should not cost a second full wait. The same loop works for an endoscopy or an X-ray; lab report review queues explains it in detail.

Who books a hearing test directly

Plenty of audiology visits never pass through the consult room first: a child sent home from a school screening with a note, an older patient back for a hearing aid adjustment, a factory worker who needs a test for work, a follow-up audiogram after an ear infection settled. They scan the audiology QR or message the clinic, pick a day from a list that shows the free slots, pick a time, and give the patient's name and the reason.

Two booking questions save the audiologist time: "Do you already use a hearing aid?" and "Age of the patient?" Both can be optional. Answers can be typed or sent as a voice note in the patient's language, which matters for a family booking on behalf of a grandparent. The audiologist sees one short English line on the day book.

Hearing aid trials need longer slots

A hearing aid trial or fitting does not fit a thirty-minute slot. If the clinic does several a week, give them their own department with forty-five or sixty minute slots and its own hours, for example two afternoons a week. Patients who come back for adjustments are booked the same way, and every booking gets a WhatsApp confirmation and a reminder one to three hours before the slot.

Calling patients who cannot hear their name

An ENT and audiology clinic is the one place where shouting a name across the waiting room fails by design. When a patient is called, TOKENN sends a your-turn message to their phone and the waiting-room TV shows the number in large type and announces it. A patient with hearing loss watches the screen or feels the phone buzz instead of straining to catch a name.

Booked audiology patients are checked in at the desk when they arrive, and from then on they are called the same way, by appointment number, in slot order.

What it costs

Each token or booking is ₹1 from a prepaid balance, with the WhatsApp messages included. A review after tests uses the same token, so a patient sent for an audiogram and seen again costs ₹1, not ₹2. Every new clinic starts with 50 free tokens.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

Lab Report Review Queues: How to Stop Issuing a Second Token →

What to Ask a Patient Before the Appointment: Questions That Save the Doctor Time →

How to Set Up WhatsApp Appointment Booking for Your Clinic, Step by Step →