Question

A new patient made a booking at my practice but did not receive a New Patient Registration form link via HotDoc. Why is this?

OR

A patient made a booking at my practice but did not receive the appropriate form. Why is this?

Solution

There are number of contributing factors that could prevent a form from being sent to a patient. Please choose one of the options below depending on the form to resolve the issue:

• New patient registration form
• Another type of form

New patient registration form

1. Firstly, check to see the patient booked a New Patient appointment type through HotDoc or directly through your practice reception. 
   
   
2. Confirm they are booked as a New Patient, not an existing patient. 
   
   

If they have satisfied the reasons listed above, here are some further reasons why a form may not have sent: 

• • If the patient has an invalid mobile number/email address attached to their patient file in your patient management software. 
    
    
  • If the appointment was booked more than 3 hours after the patient file was created in your patient management software. In this scenario, the form will only send to the patient if they were booked with a 'New Patient' or 'New Appointment' appointment type. 
    
    
  • Is the patient's appointment time further into the future? By default, HotDoc forms should send at 3pm the day before the appointment.
    
    
  • You may not have enabled the Send the form as soon as the patient books option in your Dashboard. To enable this, see How to edit a form - send a form as soon as the patient books. 
    
    
  • The patient may be opted out of receiving electronic communications. 
    
    
  • Does the appointment's practitioner have multiple profiles across different HotDoc Dashboards? In this case, HotDoc cannot automatically determine which site's form to send, resulting in no form being sent at all.
    
    
  • If the patient has already been sent a New Patient Form request in the past 30 days
    

You can send the form manually to the patient by providing the URL link to your form (located in Forms > Preview > Copy and paste the URL link of your form). Alternatively, you can have them fill the form in digitally on a device when they come into the practice.

Another type of form

1. In your appointment book, identify the patient's appointment type. 
   
   
2. Go to Forms > Forms and click Edit > Settings next to the form you expected to the patient. 
   
   
   
3. In Form Appointment Settings, check if the patient's appointment type appears in the linked appointment types in blue.
   
   
   • If the appointment type is not there, this is why the patient didn't receive the form.
   • To ensure the form sends for this appointment type in the future, link the type to the form by clicking the drop down menu then ticking the box next to the relevant type(s). Make sure to click Save when you're done.
     
     
     
     
   • If the appointment type is already linked to the form, check the How often setting.
   • If it's set to Once only, the patient may have already submitted the form which is why they weren't prompted to fill it in again. 
   • If it's set to Periodically, the patient may have submitted the form within the minimum time frame set, meaning they wouldn't be prompted to fill it in again.
     
     
     
     
4. You can send the form manually to the patient by providing the URL link or could have them fill in the form on arrival at the practice.
   • To access the URL link, go back to the Forms page and click the Preview button next to relevant form. Copy the URL from your web browser address bar and paste it into the message you're sending to the patient.
   • To make it easier for them to fill in the form on their device when they arrive at the practice, you could create a QR code poster for them to scan. For more information see: How to generate a QR code for a Form
     
     

If you're still experiencing issues from here, please get in touch by clicking the green Support button and providing details of the issue including information about the appointment and the form expected to send.