Notes for owners · Industry playbooks
What patients ask a pathology lab before booking
Patients ring a lab with a prescription in hand and a handful of practical questions. Here is what they ask, what a good answer sounds like, and where labs lose the booking.
The GullySales team · Updated 6 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
Rules for this trade differ by state and professional body, and they change. Check the current position with your own council or adviser before you act on anything here.
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Patients ask five things before they book: what the test costs, whether they must fast, whether someone can come home to collect the sample, when the report arrives and whether it can be sent to the doctor. A lab that answers all five in the first call usually gets the booking. The patient already has the prescription, so the call is not about whether to test. It is about which lab makes this easiest.
Why is price the first question?
Because it is the only thing a patient can compare from the sofa. A prescription for a thyroid panel and a sugar test is the same piece of paper at every lab, so he rings two or three and asks the same thing.
The mistake is to treat the call as a price contest. The patient is also listening for whether the person on the phone sounds like they know what they are talking about.
What does a good answer sound like?
Put the five questions into one routine, so the person on the phone does not have to improvise.
| Patient asks | What to answer | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| "How much is this?" | The price for each test on the prescription, and what is included in a package | Quoting a package price when the doctor wrote single tests |
| "Do I need to fast?" | The exact hours, and whether water is allowed | "Come empty stomach" with no hours, and the patient arrives at noon |
| "Can someone come home?" | Yes or no, the hours, the area, the extra charge if any | Saying yes and then arriving in the afternoon |
| "When is the report?" | The time it normally takes for that test, said as a normal time and not a promise | A single answer for every test |
| "Can you send it to my doctor?" | How it is shared and with whose consent | Sending to a number the patient did not give |
Fasting is the one that costs you. A patient who fasted wrongly, or ate because nobody told him, comes back another day and is angrier than a patient who paid too much.
How should a lab handle the comparison with another lab?
Some patients say it outright: the other lab is cheaper. Do not match a number you have not seen.
Ask what is in the panel they were quoted. A lipid profile at one lab and a lipid profile with extra markers at another are not the same test, and a patient who finds that out from you remembers who was straight with him. If your price really is higher and the test is the same, say so, and say what he gets for it, such as a collection time that suits him or a report that comes to his phone.
Who answers the phone matters more than the board
The receptionist at a neighbourhood lab is doing five things at once: registering a walk-in, labelling tubes, taking a call, printing a report. The call is the one that gets dropped.
Give one person the booking line during the busy hours, and give that person a one-page sheet: the common panels, the fasting hours, the home collection area and timings, the person to ask for anything unusual. A sheet on the desk is better than a trained memory that goes on leave.
What happens to the booking after the call?
The call ends with a name, a number, the tests and a time. Send those back on WhatsApp straight away, with the fasting instruction written out and the address with a map pin. It costs a minute and cuts down the repeat visits.
If the patient booked a home collection and the slot is the next morning, a message the evening before with the phlebotomist's first name is enough. If the patient did not turn up, one message the same day asking whether to rebook. After that, leave it alone.
For example, a lab beside a diabetologist's clinic in Jayanagar
Take a small lab that gets most of its work from a diabetologist two doors away. The details are illustrative. A patient is told at the clinic to get HbA1c and a lipid profile done, and instead of walking down he rings three labs from the waiting room, having seen the lab's listing on Maps.
The lab that wins is the one whose receptionist gives both prices, says fasting is not needed for the HbA1c but is needed for the lipids, offers a collection at seven the next morning, and sends the details on WhatsApp before he has put the phone down. The doctor next door is not even part of that decision. That is a call the lab can win on its own.
What to do next
Write the five questions on a sheet and answer each one for your own lab, in the words you would say aloud. Then ring your own number as a patient would and see who answers and how long it takes.
Once that works, the listing, the review replies and the clinic tie-ups matter more. The pathology labs page sets out the whole picture, and the pages on local SEO and WhatsApp marketing cover the listing and the messages. Rules on how a lab may advertise differ by state and body and change, so check with your own council or adviser before you publish anything about tests.
If you would like somebody to listen to your calls and tell you where the bookings leak, book the free audit.