Early Reminders

Summary

Early Reminder is a notification of an upcoming patient appointment.  Access the notification by going to Settings>Message Settings>Early Reminders. 

The default reminder delivery date is set at 2 or 3 weeks before the appointment (depending on the type of practice) as patient appointments are often are scheduled well in advance of the appointment date.  

For example, many dentists will schedule a return hygiene appointment up to 6 months in advance.  

The Early Reminder allows patients to check their calendar for conflicts and comfortably reschedule if needed.  Finding that your patient needs to reschedule a day or two before the appointment day can create a schedule vacancy and loss of revenue.  

Some practices find that creating a reminder for the day before the appointment in addition to the reminder a few weeks before helps to cut down on no-shows.  Others feel a day before reminder is unnecessary.  

An enabled Early Reminder notification is always sent to a patient regardless of confirmation status.  You can recognize them in the Timeline view by their orange color.

Reminder Notification

Enable Early Reminder Notification

To enable an Early Reminder notification follow the steps below:

1. Message delivery method: Choose any combination of Email, SMS, or Voice by toggling the buttons to the ON (green) position.

Delivery Method Toggles

2. Enable: Turn on the notification by toggling the button ON (green).

Enable Toggle

3. Send out:/Send at: Select how soon before the appointment date to send the reminder and the time of day to send.  Your selection here is applied as well to the voice reminder for this notification.  

Send out/at

4. Providers: The provider associated with a patient’s appointment must be present.  If a provider used for appointment scheduling is not present in the drop down menu, try refreshing providers, return and refresh the notification, and enable the desired provider.   Settings > General Settings > Refresh PMS Data.

Provider Selection Field
5. Appointment Types: The appointment type associated with a patient’s appointment must be present.  If an appointment type used for an appointment in not present in the drop down menu, try refreshing appointment types, return and refresh the notification, and enable the the desired appointment type.  Settings > General Settings > Refresh PMS Data.

Appointment Type Selection Field

6. Voice Reminders: A reminder for an upcoming appointment can be made to the patient’s home phone.  To enable an automated voice call set the options as below:

• Call at: Set the time of day to make the call

• Speaker: English is always default. You may choose Spanish, Mexico for a voice message in Spanish if Alice is chosen as Speaker. Choosing Spanish, Spain enables Conchita.

• Language: English is always default. You may choose Spanish, Mexico for a voice message in Spanish if Alice is chosen as Speaker

• Call when: Choose what contact information (or lack of) triggers a call

• Option to call Office: Will the patient be able to press a button to call the office telephone

• Office Number: Displays what phone number the patient will reach when Option to call Office is enabled  

Voice Call Settings

• Advanced Settings: A practice may decide to send a voice call Reminder on a day other than scheduled.  The left column shows the day the reminder is scheduled to be sent, the right column is the you you prefer the reminder to be sent.                                 Voice Advanced Settings

7. Templates: Each notification will preload with a default template when the message delivery method is turned on.  

• To view the current enabled template, click the template tab in the notification for enabled delivery method.  To change or edit the current template, click Edit Template.  

Current Template

• To change templates, choose a different template from the drop down menu in the Message Template screen.  When done, click SAVE & CLOSE

Choose Message Template