Best Practice/Pracsoft/Zedmed/Optomate

1. The Patient Journey

Reviewing the patient journey will allow you to be in control if you receive any enquiries as you will always know what to expect. A strong sense of the patient journey will also enable you to educate your staff and patients, as well as preempt any concerns or queries the patient may have.

HotDoc can send appointment reminders via email, push notification or SMS. 

• For SMS, we send this from a dedicated number and appears as an SMS like the image below:
  

• For email appointment reminders, the email will send from the name of your practice. 
  
  
• If the patient uses our HotDoc app, they may also receive a Push Notification on their mobile device. See What are Push Notifications? for more information. 
  
  
• If the patient cannot click the link in their SMS, they may also reply with a Yes or No response. If they respond with something else, this will go to your Sidebar. See How to action SMS reminder responses in your Sidebar for what replies we do and don't recognise, and how to action these. 
  
  
• There may also be times when a patient attempts to cancel an appointment, but we are unable to due to some settings. See Why is a patient unable to cancel their appointment? to learn more.
  
  
• If a patient has attempted to cancel an appointment that is unable to be removed, we will send an SMS reply to the patient advising them to contact the practice. Learn more by reading What do patients see when they cancel via SMS appointment reminder?

We recommend you share the above information (and linked resources) with your wider team so everyone is informed and ready to assist with any questions you may receive from your patients.

2. Appointment sync

Now that you know how your patients will receive their appointment reminder, let's learn how appointments are synced and isolated for Reminder sending.

When looking at your appointment book, HotDoc will take the following rules into consideration:

• By default, we will only send appointment reminders to patients with an appointment inside an active practitioner's session. 
  
  
• If a patient has a tandem appointment, we will only send an appointment reminder for the first appointment time.
  
  
• If a patient has a tandem appointment, their confirmation or cancellation will apply to both appointments if scheduled within a set time period (2 hours by default)
  
  
• If a patient has already received an appointment reminder that day, we will not send another appointment reminder to that patient on the same day. The exception to this rule is if a guardian's mobile number is associated with their dependant and they both have appointments on the same day.

These rules work to prevent a patient from receiving too many messages which may be confusing or frustrating for them. 

3. Reminders Settings and Practitioners Settings

Now that you're aware of how HotDoc syncs appointments when sending appointment reminders, please review the Reminder settings. 

To access your appointment reminders settings, log in to your HotDoc Dashboard and navigate to Reminders > Settings. 

• Alongside some general reminder settings, you can also configure who your reminders send for under the Practitioner Settings. 
• You can choose the practitioners, nurses and appointment books that you would like to send appointment reminders to. This allows you to control who HotDoc contacts based on your practitioner preferences.
  

4. Reminder Templates 

By default, your Dashboard will have access to our Standard suite of templates. This includes Early, Regular and Immediate reminders. If your practice has access to Custom templates they will be visible in your Dashboard under the Customer Reminder tab.

Note the default SMS Message character limit is 160 characters to keep within fair SMS usage. To learn how to edit the SMS Message, please see: How do I edit the copy in an Appointment Reminder message?

 

• Regular Reminders
  

  A Regular Reminder is sent to the patient 24 hours in advance of their appointment date/time. We provide a recommended default message but you can adjust the copy by typing within the SMS Message field (must be within 160 characters):
  
  
  
  

• Immediate Reminders
  

  Immediate Reminders are sent to patients who've made an appointment within 24 hours, but no less than two hours of their appointment time. The appointment reminder is sent within 5-15 minutes of the appointment being confirmed.
  By default, we provide a recommended message but you can adjust the copy by typing within the SMS Message field (must be within 160 characters):
  
  
  
  

• Early Reminders (Optional)
  

  • By default, an Early Reminder will send an appointment reminder 7 days in advance of the patient's appointment time. This type of Reminder is handy for practices who tend to book appointments quite far in advance, or who want to confirm a patient's attendance earlier than 24 hours.
    
    
  • To enable early reminders, toggle to ON: 
    
    
    
    

• Custom Reminders
  

  Custom Reminders cannot be created in the Dashboard and are not available by default. They exist for specific cases where you may have another team of practitioners, such as Allied Health, that require separate send times or a different SMS Message.
  
  If you have a Custom Reminder setup, s ee How to edit a Custom Reminder Template? for more information. 
  
  

Please read the following article which outlines how to review and adjust your appointment type settings for reminders: How do I enable or disable appointment reminders from sending for specific appointment types?   Please read the following article which outlines how to review and adjust your appointment type cancellation settings for reminders: How do I enable or disable appointment types from being cancelled via an appointment reminder?

 

5. Activating Reminders

Congratulations, you've completed all the steps for the setup of HotDoc Reminders! All that's left now is for your practice to turn it switch it on if it's not already active.

If you are switching from another provider, we suggest turning off your previous reminder system before following the steps below:

1. Navigate to Dashboard > Reminders > Settings.
   
   
2. On the page, find the Activate Reminders section. If you are ready for Reminders to send to patients, select On then press Save at the bottom of the page. This will activate the Regular and Immediate templates. 
   
   
   
3. If you want to send early reminders, you must enable this independently in the Early Reminders section.
   
   To do this, go to Reminders > Templates > Early Reminders and ensure it is toggled to ON:
   
   
   
   

6. Managing Reminders

From here, your appointment reminders should be relatively automatic however we advise checking which reminders are upcoming, have been sent, or that did not send due to various reasons.

You can do this in the Future Reminders, History and Unsent Reminders section of the Dashboard. 

 

Future Reminders	History	Unsent Reminders

We recommend the following resources to assist with learning how to view and manage HotDoc Reminders moving forward:

• • How do I search for an appointment reminder using the patient's name?
  • How to view upcoming Reminders
  • How can I view the history of my sent appointment reminders?
  • How do I know if an appointment has been confirmed?
  • Why didn't a patient receive their appointment reminder?
  • What do patients see when they receive an Appointment Reminder?'
  • How to action SMS reminder responses in your Sidebar
  • Reminders FAQ
  • How do I edit the copy of our Appointment Reminders?
  • How do I add a custom message to my appointment reminders?

Go ahead and check out our HotDoc Reminders Support centre for further resources and to search for frequently asked questions.

 

7. Telehealth Reminders

If your practice has set up and linked your HotDoc Telehealth appointment type to the Telehealth appointment type in your clinical software, w e will automatically send an appointment reminder for any Telehealth appointment type booked (both via HotDoc or with Reception).

For more information about Telehealth, please see How to create and manage Telehealth appointments.