Will my physician group need to download an app?

No download required. Physicians can set preferences, view schedules, and manage shifts entirely from a web browser on any device. If your team prefers an app, Soonest does offer a dedicated mobile app on iOS and Android.

Physician Scheduling Software

Q: Does Soonest's physician scheduling software follow HIPAA guidelines?

Soonest does not handle protected health information, as scheduling, preferences, and shift data fall outside what HIPAA regulates. That said, Soonest is built following HIPAA-aligned security practices as a standard, even though that data is not in scope. If your team needs a formal compliance review as part of procurement, your Schedule Assistant can walk through Soonest's security setup directly.

The Problem

Most scheduling software solves for coverage. Physicians deserve more.

Call panels get built once and stay fixed for months, cross-coverage falls to whoever's free rather than whoever fits, and preferences get collected once and forgotten. It's no one's fault. It's just what happens when a schedule is built by hand.

Physician preferences go in, but they don't shape the schedule

A physician flags they're overextended or requests a lighter month, and there's no structured way for that to shape the actual schedule. When physicians can't influence their own coverage or flag what's happening, burnout follows.

47% of physicians report burnout

Admins lose weeks to manual scheduling

Chasing preferences, reworking call panels, and handling swap requests eat 15 to 20 or more hours per scheduling cycle, on top of everything else already on an admin's plate. It never fully resets before the next cycle starts.

15 to 20+ hours lost per scheduling cycle

The cost shows up as turnover

High-acuity call doesn't reset between stretches. Without a structured way to flag it, that toll builds quietly, and replacing one physician in a high-demand specialty runs upward of $750K.

Upward of $750K to replace one physician

Our Approach

Physician scheduling, wellbeing, and coaching, all in one platform.

Soonest flags physician burnout risk early, and that signal shapes next month's schedule and points to the right coaching.

For Admins

AI schedule building across specialties and sites

Automated swap, release, and call-out resolution

Dedicated human Schedule Assistant

Payroll and time clock in the same system

15 to 20+ hours saved

Per scheduling cycle

Soonest the platform

For Physicians

Preference-based self-scheduling

Trade, release, and call-out flows without a phone tree

Quick check-ins after each shift

Coaching programs

Turnover reduced

Physicians who feel heard stay longer

Built Different

Most software simply handles the schedule. Soonest also looks after the physicians.

Built by physicians

We exist because our co-founder was frustrated building his own group's schedule by hand. Soonest was designed from the ground up to tackle the burnout crisis sweeping across healthcare providers.

Human and AI, not one or the other

Every group gets a dedicated Schedule Assistant, a real person who sets up your group's rules and steps in for any questions that come up along the way.

A complete end-to-end platform

Scheduling, shift management, payroll, messaging, and coaching all live in one platform, so you're not juggling multiple tools and budgets.

The Platform

One system for physician scheduling, coverage, and everything after.

From reliable AI-generated call schedules to real-time wellness intelligence and targeted coaching, Soonest is built for the complexity of physician scheduling.

AI Scheduling

Preference-based physician scheduling that builds itself

Physicians set preferences, admins set rules, and the solver handles the rest. Multi-specialty, multi-site schedules resolve simultaneously.

Auto-generates physician schedules from templates and preferences
Cross-specialty scheduling so all sites resolve at once
Schedule Grade: the system rates fairness and constraint coverage
Draft, Review, Publish workflow with you always in control
Physicians see exactly which preferences were honored and why

Shift Management

Trades, releases, and call-outs, without the admin work

Physicians self-serve through the platform, and you set whether admin approval is required.

Trade: 1-for-1 swaps, direct or group-wide
Release: "I'd prefer not to work this, but I will if no one picks it up"
Call-out: last-minute illness with immediate admin notification
Open shift marketplace, allowing physicians to post to a group or facility-wide
"Need coverage?" button connects to a locum tenens partner

Payroll & Clock

Clock in, clock out, export to payroll. Simple as that.

Time tracking is built directly into the platform, and you can export directly to ADP, Paycom, Paylocity, or any provider for easy payroll.

Clock in and out from mobile or desktop with geofencing
Automatic overtime and differential calculations
Export to ADP, Paycom, Paylocity, and others
Real-time hours tracking by group and facility
Flag discrepancies before payroll runs

Pulse AI

Know how your group is doing before it's too late

Soonest sends physicians a brief, 30-second end-of-shift check-in, where your team can rate how heavy the call felt and optionally share what drove it. Pulse AI surfaces burnout signals, safety flags, and at-risk physicians, so you can act before it becomes a retention problem.

"How heavy was today?" 1 to 10 scale, voice or text response
Anonymous posting option, so physicians share what they actually feel
AI sentiment analysis, topic clustering, smart safety alerts
Predictive risk scoring by group and individual
Connected coaching recommendations for at-risk physicians

Coaching

Targeted support driven by your physician group's own signals

Pulse AI identifies what your group needs and then coaching delivers it. From 1:1 burnout recovery to team-level facilitation and safety training, programs are recommended based on your group's data.

Burnout Recovery: 8-week 1:1 program for decompression and sustainable pacing
Resilience Training: stress management, mental health first aid, recovery skills
Team Dynamics: facilitation to rebuild trust, handoffs, and communication norms
Workplace Safety: training for aggressive patient encounters and escalation
Leadership: new manager foundations, service line chief programs, executive development

Coaching Programs

Recommendations powered by Pulse AI signals

AI Recommended

1:1 Coaching

Burnout Recovery

8-week program · Decompression, boundary setting, sustainable pacing

Team Seminar

Team Dynamics

Rebuild trust, handoffs, and communication norms across your group

Course

Workplace Safety

Aggressive patient encounters, escalation protocols, rapid response

Team Seminar

Resilience Training

Stress management, recovery skills, mental health first aid

Common Questions

Frequently asked questions.

Fixed or block scheduling has traditionally been the most common approach; the same rotation repeats each cycle until something forces a change. It's simple to build, but it doesn't adjust to individual preferences or workload. Self-scheduling, where physicians choose from open slots within defined rules, is increasingly seen as the better standard for satisfaction and retention, but it requires a system to enforce the rules automatically. Otherwise, fairness breaks down fast. That's the gap Soonest is built to close.

Most physician software automates the schedule but leaves the rest to admins, with preferences, swaps, and burnout tracking still happening manually if at all. Soonest automates preference collection, multi-site resolution, and ongoing swap management, and pairs it with Pulse AI and coaching to address burnout at the root. Every group also gets a dedicated human Schedule Assistant, not just software.

Soonest doesn't handle protected health information, as scheduling, preferences, and shift data fall outside what HIPAA regulates. That said, Soonest is built following HIPAA-aligned security practices as a standard, even though that data isn't in scope. If your team needs a formal compliance review as part of procurement, your Schedule Assistant can walk through Soonest's security setup directly.

No download required. Physicians can set preferences, view schedules, and manage shifts entirely from a web browser on any device, including a phone. If your team prefers an app, Soonest does offer a dedicated mobile app on iOS and Android with the full feature set.

Most groups using an existing tool still have admins doing the heavy lifting around preferences, rework, and swap management, with no visibility into how physicians are actually doing shift to shift. If that sounds familiar, Soonest addresses both. The best way to evaluate it: let us build a free custom schedule from your real data. No commitment or restructuring on your end.

Soonest's physician scheduling software usually takes 3 to 5 business days to implement, from data collection to your first published schedule. This only takes up about 4 hours of your team's time total, spread across a few short calls, and your Schedule Assistant handles the rest of the setup.

Yes. The solver is built around your group's actual constraints, including call panel structure, cross-coverage rules, seniority-based preference weighting, specialty-specific requirements, and more. Hard rules and soft preferences are handled separately, so the system knows the difference between "I can't" and "I'd rather not."

Physician scheduling software, built for call and coverage.