How do I update my clinic's hours for a holiday or doctor's leave?

A holiday closes the clinic for a day or two. Google, WhatsApp and your website do not know that unless you tell each one separately, and a patient who already has an appointment booked in those dates will not see any of it unless someone messages them directly.

How do I add holiday hours to my Google Business Profile?

Open your Business Profile, go to Hours, and edit Special hours for the date. This changes only that date, not your regular weekly hours, and it works for a single day or a short run of days.

1. 1

   Step 1: Open your Business Profile

   Select Edit profile, then Hours.
2. 2

   Step 2: Find Special hours

   In the Business hours section, select the edit icon next to Special hours.
3. 3

   Step 3: Choose the date

   Pick a suggested date or add your own for each day affected.
4. 4

   Step 4: Set the hours

   Uncheck Closed and enter times if you are open that day, or leave Closed checked.
5. 5

   Step 5: Save

   Repeat for each extra day, then select Save.

Google's own help page suggests confirming your hours for official holidays even when they do not change, since a patient checking your listing on a festival day has no way to tell whether "closed" is a mistake or the actual plan. Source: Google Business Profile Help, Special hours (opens in a new tab).

What if the clinic will be closed for more than 6 days?

Special hours are built for short closures. For anything longer, Google has a separate status: Temporarily closed.

This threshold matters more than it looks. A doctor taking 10 days of leave, or a clinic shutting for a renovation over a long festival break, is past the 6-day limit for Special hours, so Temporarily closed is the correct setting, not a run of daily edits. Google's help page also notes that for broad searches, a temporarily closed listing can rank behind businesses that are open, though it does not publish an exact figure for how much. When the clinic reopens, use Mark your business as reopened (opens in a new tab) rather than leaving the status as is.

Google, WhatsApp or the website: what should I update first?

Update all three, but each one reaches a different patient, so none of them can stand in for the others.

How do I set a WhatsApp away message for the holiday?

In the WhatsApp Business app, turn on the away message, set its schedule to the closed dates, and write in the date you reopen.

1. 1

   Step 1: Open the Tools tab

   In the WhatsApp Business app, tap Tools, then Away message.
2. 2

   Step 2: Turn it on

   Switch on Send away message and write your text.
3. 3

   Step 3: Set the schedule

   Tap Schedule, choose Custom schedule, and set the start and end date.
4. 4

   Step 4: Save

   Choose who receives it under Recipients, then tap Save.

A business profile's Hours field, separate from the away message, is worth checking too. WhatsApp lists hours as part of your business profile (opens in a new tab), so an outdated hours field and a correct away message can disagree with each other on the same chat. For the full set of away and greeting message samples in English, Hindi and Hinglish, see WhatsApp auto-reply messages for clinics.

Should the clinic website also show a banner?

Yes, if a patient can land on your website without going through Google or WhatsApp first, such as from a saved bookmark, an ad, or a search result straight to your homepage.

A short strip at the top of the homepage and the booking page, stating the closed dates and the reopening date, covers this. There is no single correct way to add it since every clinic's website is built differently, but the same rule from the away message applies: state the actual date, and take the banner down once the clinic reopens rather than leaving an old date live.

• Put the dates in the banner text itself, not only in a linked page a patient has to click through to.
• Keep the emergency line visible somewhere on the closed banner too, for anyone who lands on the site needing urgent care.
• Set a reminder to remove it. A banner announcing a closure that already ended looks worse than no banner at all.

How do I inform a patient who already has an appointment booked?

Go through your appointment book for the closed dates and message each patient directly. This is the one step none of the tools above do for you.

A front-desk routine that already covers daily checks makes this easier to remember. See the clinic front desk SOP checklist for where a holiday check like this one fits into a weekly routine.

How do I plan for festivals every year, not just this one?

Keep one running list of the dates your clinic expects to close, checked against an official holiday list each year rather than memory.

The Department of Personnel and Training publishes a gazetted holiday list for central government offices every year, and it is a reasonable reference for when major national festivals fall. It lists 17 gazetted holidays for its Delhi offices in 2026. Two things worth knowing before you copy dates from any such list onto your clinic's calendar: the Islamic dates on it (Id-ul-Fitr, Id-ul-Zuha, Muharram, Milad-un-Nabi) can shift by a day depending on moon sighting, and the list is written for central government offices in Delhi, so it will not include every regional festival your own state or city actually observes. Source: DoPT, holidays for Central Government offices, 2026 (opens in a new tab).

A word on numbers. Diwali falling on a Sunday in 2026 is worth noting in your own worksheet too: if a date already lands on the clinic's usual weekly off day, it may not need a separate closure at all, only a check that WhatsApp and Google still show the right regular hours for that day. Planning against the calendar, not just the festival name, avoids marking a day closed twice or missing one that actually needs it. For the fuller picture of keeping your listing accurate month to month, see Google Business Profile for doctors and clinics.