HotDoc Inform helps your practice promote relevant services to patients at key points in their appointment journey, such as when they book, confirm a reminder or check in.

Inform includes two different types of campaigns:

Inform Promotions are one-way messages that raise awareness of your practice’s services. Patients are shown relevant educational or promotional content based on factors such as their age and gender, but they are not asked to respond.

Inform Activations are interactive campaigns that ask patients questions about their health and whether they would like further support from your practice. When a patient responds, their details are sent to your practice so your team can follow up.

Using HotDoc Inform can help your practice:

• Increase patient awareness and uptake of services such as health assessments and care plans.
• Identify patients who may benefit from additional support.
• Promote relevant services to patients when their health is already front of mind.

Inform campaigns can be shown to patients in your appointment book regardless of whether they originally booked through HotDoc.

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.

How does HotDoc Inform work?

Inform acts as a one-way communication tool that educates patients on their own preventative health measures, while allowing the practice to seamlessly promote their own services. 

HotDoc has a setting in place so that patients will only see a promotion once. After this, they will not see the same promotion again for 90 days.

If the patient falls within the demographics for multiple campaigns HotDoc will pick on the campaign and show the patient, they will then be shown another one the next time. This is why we recommend having multiple campaigns switched on per product. 

Basic and Premium Promotions

All Inform promotions — Basic and Premium — are included at no extra cost and available to every practice. Basic and Premium are simply content categories in the Dashboard, not access tiers, so there's nothing to unlock or request.

Basic promotions raise patient awareness with educational content about your services — a good starting point for introducing patients to HotDoc products like reminders or SMS recalls.

Premium promotions use pre-built or custom templates to target specific patient demographics, helping you build loyalty and grow relevant services.

Activate any Basic or Premium campaigns relevant to your practice the same way — see Activating your Inform Promotions below.

Activating your Inform Promotions 

You have the freedom to activate or deactivate any Inform Promotions that are relevant to your practice per product.

You can activate as many campaigns as you like and this generally is recommended for the best visibility of each promotion.

Your Inform Promotions live in the  HotDoc Dashboard  under Inform > Promotions:

Switch on HotDoc Activations

Unlike Inform Promotions, Inform Activations is a two-way communication tool allowing the patient to respond to the promotion they've been shown.

• Activations appear after the patient confirms their appointment or books an appointment.
• The activation will prompt the patient to answer a series of questions relating to their health.
• The patient will then be asked if they would like to receive further support from the practice in addressing these health issues. 

To switch Inform activations on, see the guide below.

Your Inform Activations live in the HotDoc Dashboard under Inform > Activations:

If a patient responds to the campaign it will be emailed through to the practice and you can proactively reach out to a patient and get them booked in for an appointment. You will need to set up an email address for the patient responses to be sent to.

Congratulations! You now know the basics and features of HotDoc Inform. Go ahead and check out our HotDoc Inform Support centre for further resources and to search for frequently asked questions.