How tos

How to plan your healthcare team’s workload and availability during the holiday season

Read Time: 4 minutes

Updated: Dec 12, 2025

Two professionals working at an office desk decorated with holiday greenery and ornaments.

A complete holiday-season workload plan for healthcare administration includes mapping provider availability, adjusting clinic hours, communicating schedule changes to patients, redistributing front-desk responsibilities, preparing clear handovers and scheduling all critical appointments and meetings before staff leave. The easiest way to begin is to use a Doodle Group Poll to collect team availability quickly and avoid email threads, delays and last-minute coverage gaps during the busiest time of the year.

Holiday workload planning for healthcare administration teams

The end of the year is a complex period for clinics and healthcare practices. Staff take time off, providers adjust their schedules, insurance deadlines approach, and patient appointments often surge before the holidays. With so many moving parts, miscommunication can lead to overbooking, gaps in coverage or frustrated patients.

This guide brings everything together in one place — a clear checklist, a planning table and practical tips to help your administrative team run smoothly throughout December and early January. With early planning and the right tools, your clinic can stay organized, responsive and stress-free.

What people ask when planning holiday healthcare schedules

Healthcare admins usually ask the same questions every year:

“Which providers are available and when?” “What clinic hours can we realistically offer?” “How do we cover the phones and the front desk?” “What appointments must be handled before the break?” “What can safely move into January?” “How do we coordinate handovers between staff?” “How do we avoid schedule chaos during the busiest patient period?” “Is there a way to collect everyone’s availability without chasing people?”

This article answers all of these — with templates you can copy instantly.

Complete holiday workload and availability planning checklist

Category	What to consider / what to do
Collect team availability	Use a Doodle Group Poll to gather PTO dates, reduced hours, provider holidays and administrative coverage needs.
Confirm clinic hours	Decide whether you operate full days, half days or reduced hours; communicate early.
Provider availability	Map which doctors, dentists, therapists or specialists are available and the services they can provide.
Front-desk & phone coverage	Ensure phones, check-ins, insurance requests and patient follow-ups remain staffed.
Appointment prioritization	Identify urgent visits (pre-holiday treatments, medication refills, insurance cutoffs) vs. appointments that can wait.
Rescheduling plan	Prepare scripts and email templates for moving appointments if coverage changes.
Insurance & billing deadlines	Track end-of-year insurance submissions, claims, pre-authorizations and billing cycles.
Handover documentation	Create staff-to-staff handovers with pending tasks, follow-up lists, inbox notes, system access and patient alerts.
Communication rules	Define emergency contacts, after-hours protocols and who handles urgent patient messages.
Vendor & lab coordination	Check holiday hours for labs, pharmacies and referral partners.
Calendar updates	Add PTO, reduced hours, adjusted schedules and critical deadlines to shared calendars.
Monitor workload fairness	Ensure no admin or provider becomes overloaded due to holiday gaps; redistribute tasks.
January readiness	Schedule a post-holiday reset meeting using Doodle to align on patient backlog and new priorities.

Holiday season planning timeline

Timeline	What to do
3–4 weeks before	Collect availability with Doodle, confirm clinic hours, identify coverage gaps, review deadlines.
2 weeks before	Reassign front-desk tasks, complete handovers, send schedule updates to patients, confirm provider calendars.
1 week before	Finalize staffing, review urgent appointments, align billing cycles, confirm on-call roles.
Last working days	Set out-of-office replies, update voicemail greetings, tidy patient records, ensure all documents are accessible.
First week of January	Hold a kickoff meeting, review backlog, reset priorities and return to normal clinic operations smoothly.

How to use Doodle to plan your healthcare team’s holiday workload

Use a Group Poll to collect staff availability.

Instead of emailing back and forth, create one Doodle poll where staff can mark:

PTO days
half days
limited availability
provider blockouts
preferred front-desk shifts

This gives instant visibility into coverage gaps.

Use Doodle 1:1s or Booking Pages for coordination

Admins and clinic managers can schedule:

pre-holiday check-ins with providers
patient follow-up planning
insurance/billing alignment meetings
end-of-year wrap-up sessions

No manual coordination required.

Plan January before the clinic closes

Set up a Doodle poll for:

your first-week-of-January alignment meeting
a patient backlog review
new-year operations planning

Teams that prepare early experience fewer patient complaints, fewer scheduling bottlenecks and a calmer start to January.

How to keep holiday workload planning stress-free

Keep your clinic hours realistic
Notify patients early about schedule changes
Make sure all staff understand coverage expectations
Encourage providers to finalize documentation before leaving
Keep all handover files accessible
Support staff who pick up extra workload
Confirm January’s plan before the break

Good planning reduces confusion, keeps patients happy and protects staff wellbeing.

“Since planning availability with Doodle, our clinic’s holiday season has been the smoothest ever. Last December, we struggled with reduced hours, staff PTO, and nonstop appointment requests. This year, we collected everyone’s availability through Doodle in minutes, reassigned tasks quickly, and communicated changes to patients early.” — Marisol R., Clinic Administrator