If a patient has unsuccessfully tried to cancel their appointment either in the HotDoc app or via their Reminder message, there could be several reasons.

Your practice's settings can be configured to prohibit appointment cancellations:

• For all reminders: Practice-wide setting
  
• For individual practitioners: Either for a specified time period or completely for that practitioner
  
• For specific appointment types: Standard, Care Plan, etc.
  
• For specific Reminder types: Regular, Immediate, Early, etc.

Please note, not all of these settings are visible on your Dashboard, but if configured will stop patients from being able to cancel via their appointment reminder and any bookings they've made with their HotDoc account.

Where are my cancellation settings?

Cancellation settings per appointment type are located in the HotDoc Dashboard under Bookings > Appointment Types then selecting Edit next to the appointment type you wish to add the settings to:



Scroll down to Link to Appointment Type and select Yes or No under Accept cancellations online and via Reminder:

When set to Yes, the patient will be able to cancel this appointment type.

When set to No, the patient will not be able to cancel this appointment type, unless they call the practice directly. 

What will patients see?

When a patient tries to cancel an appointment via their reminder message but is unable to, they will receive an automated reply directing them to contact the practice directly:

When trying to cancel via the HotDoc app, they will be directed to the practice:

Further information can be found on the following support article: Smart Cancellation Replies

Best Practice Jade SP2 and above

Best Practice's Jade SP2 update prevents third parties from being able to cancel Recall appointments. In these cases, the request will go to the practice's Sidebar when a patient attempts to cancel so that it can be manually actioned.