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How to use this guide

Use this document before kickoff to prepare decisions, during onboarding to configure Penciled accurately, and after go-live to train staff and monitor adoption. It is intentionally detailed because the real work is translating clinic-specific scheduling knowledge from staff members into consistent, auditable system rules.

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Document map

1. Executive summary: what Penciled does and why onboarding matters
2. Onboarding philosophy: turn tribal knowledge into system rules
3. Pre-onboarding preparation for the clinic
4. Phase-by-phase configuration guide
5. Patient data audit and staged rollout
6. Automated patient enrollment
7. Staff onboarding and adoption training
8. Post-launch operating rhythm and success metrics
9. Go-live readiness checklist

1. Executive summary: what Penciled does and why onboarding matters

Penciled is an AI front office agent connected to WebPT. The goal is to automate as many end-to-end physical therapy administrative tasks as possible, beginning with scheduling. In a fully mature implementation, the clinic should not think of Penciled as a simple reminder tool or a generic online booking widget. Penciled is a scheduling automation layer that understands operational context, investigates patient eligibility, communicates with patients, and books visits directly into WebPT. Penciled strictly adheres to predefined rules associated to complex combinations of specializations, provider groups, patient case study requirements, and payer approvals.

Penciled utilizes generative AI and SMS to complete the scheduling lifecycle: initial exam scheduling, follow-up scheduling according to plans of care, responsive confirmations, self-cancelling and rescheduling, last-minute cancellation filling, waitlist outreach, and patient customer support for a variety of inbound scenarios. Penciled supports multilingual patient conversations, cancellation fee workflows, appointment-type specific booking, payer-specific rules like authorization/policy/prescription requirements, provider specialization and double-booking rules, and clinic-specific capacity constraints.

1.1 What Penciled automates

• Scheduling initial exams directly into WebPT, including custom initial exam appointment types when needed.
• Reaching out to patients after initial exams so they can schedule follow-ups according to their plan of care.
• Reading active plans and signed provider documentation like initial exam notes, plan of care notes, progress notes, and addendums so that follow-up scheduling reflects the current care plan rather than a static rule.
• Detecting unscheduled follow-up visits and offering patients available times that satisfy the care plan, payer, provider(s), compliance, appointment type, and broader clinic rules.
• Detecting cancellations and building a live waitlist at the moment of each cancellation, then contacting eligible patients in parallel, in sequence, or within successive priority groups depending on clinic settings.