The third field is where the booking dies

In Kuching outpatient halls we keep a crude tally: how many people still have the booking app open when their queue number is called. The drop is rarely at “choose doctor.” It is earlier, at the third demand for identity.

A typical sequence: type IC, type mobile, photograph the IC because the OCR failed under the hall lights. The phone is warm. A child is bored. The SMS code arrives after the clerk has already shouted the name. The patient pockets the phone and takes a paper ticket.

If you only measure “completed bookings” in the vendor’s admin screen, you miss this. Those people still have appointments — the clerk typed them. The app looks healthy. The kiosk looks unused.

When we review a booking journey we time that third field with a watch, not with a funnel chart. Ask your vendor whether the photo is required after a successful IC checksum. In several Malaysian apps it is required anyway, “for the file.” The file already has the number from the first box.

Bring a printed appointment card to your next vendor meeting. If the card already shows the IC last four digits, the app should not ask the patient to perform theatre for the same fact.