This guide covers the essentials of setting up and using HotDoc Appointment Reminders. HotDoc Reminders is a customisable automatic messaging system that sends an appointment reminder to your patients ahead of their appointment. Using this can:
- Significantly reduce your do not attend/no-show rates
- Save your reception team time and effort by removing the need to manually call each patient
- See real-time confirmations and cancellations in your appointment book
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Remind patients via multiple channels such as Push Notification, Email and/or SMS to effectively communicate to patients to remind them of their appointment
- When using all these channels, the average confirmation rate is 75% which is 10% higher than SMS-only reminders!
- Customise your appointment reminder copy to include important information or practice policies.
- Deliver targeted information such as the HotDoc digital new patient form, or Inform promotions to advertise practice services.
If you are new to Reminders or setting up for the first time, you will be required to complete all sections below. Once set up, automatic appointment reminders will send to all your patients in your appointment book, regardless of if they booked online or through your practice.
Best Practice/Pracsoft/Zedmed/Optomate
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In this article |
1. The Patient Journey
| Before setting up HotDoc to send appointment reminders, we recommend reviewing the journey from a patient point of view. This allows you to understand what the patient can expect incase you receive any enquires and educate your staff as well. See What do patients see when they receive an Appointment Reminder? |
HotDoc can send appointment reminders via multiple channels depending on your settings, the patients eligibility and available contact options. We will try to send a reminder the following order:
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Push notification sent to the HotDoc app - If the patient does not confirm/cancel, we'll send a SMS 2 hours later
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Email sent to the email address in the patients file - (If we're unable to send a push notification), and if the patient does not confirm/cancel, send SMS 2 hours later
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SMS sent to the mobile number in the patients file - If we cannot contact the patient via push notification or email.
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Push notification |
SMS |
- For email appointment reminders, the subject line will include the name of your practice and sent from noreply@hotdoc.com.au
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For SMS, we send this from a dedicated number.
- 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
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HotDoc Reminders works by syncing the appointments and the associated patient records sitting within your appointment book. We then look at the mobile number in the patient record and send the appointment reminder to that number. |
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 your Reminder settings in to your HotDoc Dashboard under Reminders > Settings to manage manage how they send and which practitioners they send for.
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Send settings: Allows you to turn reminders on or off, manage how, when, and to who they send and include a custom message to communicate added information.
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Practitioner Settings: Manage the practitioners, nurses and appointment books that you would like to send appointment reminders for.
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For more assistance on how to review and edit your Reminder Settings and Practitioner settings for reminders, please see:
You can also view this interactive guide below to learn more: |
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It's important to review the default Reminders settings to ensure you're happy with who HotDoc sends Reminders for as well as when we send the appointment reminder. It's important to review which practitioners you'd like to enable or disable for appointment reminders so that you're happy with who HotDoc sends Reminders. |
4. Reminder Templates
By default, your Dashboard will have access to our Standard suite of templates. This includes Regular, Immediate and Early reminders which you can customise and edit from the Reminders > Templates section.
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Note the default SMS Message character limit is 160 characters to keep within fair SMS usage. You can customise your email reminders however up to 1280 characters. To do this, see: How do I edit the copy in an Appointment Reminder message? |
Standard Reminders
Standard reminders consist of Regular and Immediate Reminders.
- A Regular Reminder is sent to the patient 24 hours in advance of their appointment date/time.
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An 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.
- We provide a recommended default message for both Email and SMS reminders however you can customise these messages within the character limit. For Email Reminders this is 1280 characters, and SMS is 60 characters).
- Here you can also customise which appointment types it will and won't send for, as well as some cancellation settings.
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Early Reminders (Optional)
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By default, an Early Reminder will send an appointment reminder 7 days in advance of the patient's appointment time. This is handy if your patients often book appointments far in advance, or if you who want to confirm a patient's attendance earlier than 24 hours.
- We provide a recommended default message for both Email and SMS reminders however you can customise these messages within the character limit. For Email Reminders this is 1280 characters, and SMS is 60 characters):
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To enable early reminders, toggle to ON:
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For more information on adjusting the appointment types your reminders can send for, and the appointment types that allow cancellations, please review these articles: |
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:
- Navigate to Dashboard > Reminders > Settings.
- 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.
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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:
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- 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, we 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.
Dental4Windows/HotDoc Calendar
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In this article |
1. The Patient Journey
| Before setting up HotDoc to send appointment reminders, we recommend that you first review the journey from a patient point of view. See What do patients see when they receive a Reminder? |
HotDoc can send appointment reminders via multiple channels depending on your settings, the patients eligibility and available contact options. We will try to send them in the following order:
-
Push notification sent to the HotDoc app - and if the patient does not confirm/cancel, we'll send a SMS 2 hours later
-
Email sent to the email address in the patients file - (If we're unable to send a push notification), and if the patient does not confirm/cancel, send SMS 2 hours later
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SMS sent to the mobile number in the patients file - if we cannot contact the patient via push notification or email.
- For email appointment reminders, the email subject line will include the name of your practice.
- For SMS, we send this from a dedicated number and appears as an SMS like the image below.
- If the patient does not have a smart phone to click the link, they may also reply with a Yes or No response via SMS.
- 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 also send an SMS reply to the patient to advise them to contact the practice. Learn more by reading the information in Smart Cancellation Replies.
2. How does HotDoc send the reminder?
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HotDoc Reminders works by syncing the appointments and the associated patient details sitting within your HotDoc Appointment Calendar. |
Now that you know how your patients will receive their appointment reminder, let's learn what appointments qualify for a Reminder to be sent.
When looking at your Appointment Calendar, HotDoc will send each patient a reminder for their appointments 24 hours in advance. During this time, we take the following rules into consideration:
- Whether the HotDoc patient record has been opted in to receive HotDoc communication.
- If a patient has a tandem appointment (two appointments in the book), we will only send a 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 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 Practitioner Settings
Now that you're aware of how HotDoc syncs appointments when sending appointment reminders, please review your Reminder settings in to your HotDoc Dashboard under Reminders > Settings to manage manage how they send and which practitioners they send for.
- Send settings: Allows you to turn reminders on or off, manage how, when, and to who they send and include a custom message to communicate added information.
-
Practitioner Settings: Manage the practitioners, nurses and appointment books that you would like to send appointment reminders for.
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Please read the following article which outlines how to review and edit your Reminder Settings and Practitioner settings. How do I edit my appointment reminder settings? How do I enable or disable Reminders for a practitioner?
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It's important to review which practitioners you'd like to enable or disable for appointment reminders so that you're happy with who HotDoc sends Reminders. |
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.
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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?
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Standard Reminders
Standard reminders consist of Regular and Immediate Reminders.
- A Regular Reminder is sent to the patient 24 hours in advance of their appointment date/time.
- An 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.
-
We provide a recommended default message for both Email and SMS reminders however you can customise these messages within the character limit. For Email Reminders this is 1280 characters, and SMS is 60 characters).
- Here you can also customise which appointment types it will and won't send for, as well as some cancellation settings.
Early Reminders (Optional)
-
By default, an Early Reminder will send an appointment reminder 7 days in advance of the patient's appointment time. This is handy if your patients often book appointments far in advance, or if you who want to confirm a patient's attendance earlier than 24 hours.
- We provide a recommended default message for both Email and SMS reminders however you can customise these messages within the character limit. For Email Reminders this is 1280 characters, and SMS is 60 characters):
- To enable early reminders, toggle to ON:
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For more information on adjusting the appointment types your reminders can send for, and the appointment types that allow cancellations, please review these articles: |
5. Activating and managing 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:
- Navigate to Dashboard > Reminders > Settings.
- 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.
- To check if your Early Reminder template is enabled, navigate to:
Reminders > Templates > Early Reminders and ensure it is toggled to ON. - To check if your Custom Reminder template/s are enabled, navigate to:
Reminders > Templates > Custom Reminders and ensure they are Active.
From here, the ongoing management of your SMS messages should be relatively automatic. We recommend the following resources to assist with learning how to view and manage HotDoc Reminders moving forward:
- How to view upcoming Reminders
- How do I know if an appointment has been confirmed?
- 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?
- 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