Subject: URGENT — Critical Feature Gap: Cancellation Policy Enforcement & Schedule Management
Dear Upheal Support Team,
I'm reaching out because I've identified critical gaps in Upheal's self-scheduling system that are preventing me from managing my business effectively as a solo therapist. These features are essential for my practice, and I need your help prioritizing them.
The Problem: As a one-person practice, I cannot afford to lose revenue to last-minute cancellations or empty appointment slots. Upheal's current self-scheduling system has no way to:
Enforce my 48-hour cancellation policy
Track when clients cancel or notify me of cancellations with timestamps
Auto-invoice clients who violate my cancellation policy
Quickly fill newly available slots when cancellations happen
This forces me to manually manage cancellations, which is time-consuming and inconsistent.
Immediate Need (Temporary Workaround): Please let me know if there's a way to disable client-initiated cancellations in self-scheduling while keeping the ability for clients to reschedule and book new appointments. If this granular permission doesn't exist, I'd like to request it as a quick fix.
Larger Feature Request (Critical for My Business): I'm requesting three integrated features:
Built-In Cancellation Policy Logic:
Let me set a cancellation notice window (e.g., 48 hours)
Let me define a cancellation fee (full session charge or custom)
Automatically detect when a client cancels and auto-invoice if within the policy window
Cancellation Notifications:
Notify me immediately when a client cancels (with timestamp)
Let me approve/reject cancellations and apply fees manually if needed
Smart Availability Broadcasting (AI-Assisted):
When a slot opens up from a cancellation, use Upheal's AI to automatically send targeted notifications to my active clients
Offer them the newly available time
This eliminates manual cancellation tracking and helps fill slots quickly
Why This Matters: As a solo therapist, losing even one session per week to a cancellation I can't track or invoice has a real impact on my revenue. And every empty slot represents lost income I can't recover. These features would let me:
Protect my revenue through consistent policy enforcement
Maximize my schedule utilization
Reduce administrative burden significantly
Run my practice more professionally and sustainably
Request: Can you:
Confirm whether a granular permission to disable cancellations exists?
Prioritize these features for development, or let me know if any of them already exist?
Point me to the roadmap or let me know the timeline for these capabilities?
These aren't nice-to-haves for me — they're essential for managing a sustainable solo practice.
Thank you for your help.
Best regards, Liza Shaw
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Comments8
Upheal Moderator
Sep 30
Hi @Liza Shaw, thank you for the detailed write-up, and sorry this sat without a reply from us. Here's where each part stands after our September 9 release.
Cancellation window and fee: live ✅ . Set how much notice clients need to give (for example 48 hours) and your fee amount once, and Upheal applies them from there.
Invoicing late cancellations: live ✅. When a client cancels after your cutoff, the appointment is marked as a late cancellation and the invoice is created automatically. It doesn't charge the card on file yet. That part is Autopay, which is in progress.
Keeping a record: live ✅. Canceled, late-canceled and no-show appointments now stay on your calendar with their status instead of disappearing.
Applying fees yourself: live ✅. When you mark an appointment as a no-show or late cancellation, you choose whether to charge the fee, so you can waive it when it makes sense.
Getting notified when a client cancels: not yet. Follow it here: https://feedback.upheal.io/p/notify-us-when-someone-cancels
Filling slots that open up: not yet. Follow it here: https://feedback.upheal.io/p/cancellation-waitlist-for-fully-booked-weeks-that-automatically-recives-updates
Approving cancellations before they go through, or turning off client cancellations while keeping rescheduling: not available today. We've noted both.
We're marking this post as completed since the policy and fee parts are live. The remaining pieces have their own posts, so upvote the ones that matter most to you and you'll get updates there.
Jennifer Seidner
Sep 24
This is huge! How much longer before this is ready?
Lydia Fransen
Aug 24
•Merged request
•4 votes
Notify us when someone cancels!
If we got a copy of the email they get, we would know that they canceled and when!
Until you implement this, I will miss out on all late cancellation fees, and I will probably drive to the office only to find out no one is there because they cancelled and I didn’t check the calendar last minute.
Adam Secore
Aug 24
•Merged request
•2 votes
Cancelation notifications
Critical Feature Request: Cancellation Controls
This is a critical feature because cancellations currently can happen without the clinician knowing, making it difficult to recover the newly available time.
1. Immediate cancellation notification — Critical
When a patient cancels, the clinician should receive an automatic notification immediately (push notification and/or email). Clinicians should not have to constantly monitor their calendar to discover cancellations.
For example, I recently had a patient submit a payment and cancel an appointment at nearly the same time. I had arranged my schedule around that appointment and had no idea the time had become available.
2. Configurable cancellation window
Allow clinicians to set a cancellation window, such as 24 hours.
Outside the window: patient can cancel normally.
Inside the window: patient cannot cancel directly and instead sees:
“You are outside your clinician’s cancellation window. Please contact your clinician directly to cancel or reschedule.”
The window should ideally be configurable (e.g., 12, 24, 48, or 72 hours).
3. Option to disable patient-initiated cancellations entirely
Clinicians should have the option to completely disable patient-initiated cancellations, requiring patients to contact the clinician directly to cancel or reschedule.
This would allow for better patient service by giving the clinician an opportunity to have someone reach out and coordinate a new appointment time that works for both the patient and clinician, rather than creating unnecessary back-and-forth. It would also create a much more efficient workflow for managing cancellations and rescheduling.
Lydia Fransen
Aug 19
This is extremely important. Late cancellations can’t just disappear without a trace. They need to be tracked at a minimum.