This article explains what patients receive before and after booking a Flu or COVID-19 vaccine appointment through HotDoc, including confirmations, reminders, consent forms and post-appointment information.

*Reminder delivery depends on what patient contact details we have on file, and whether the patient uses the HotDoc app and has notifications enabled.

How will patients receive pre- and post-appointment information?

If pre- and post-appointment information is enabled, patients will receive this information by email regardless of your clinic’s reminder email settings. This ensures patients still receive these important details.

Pre-appointment information: 

Patients will receive the pre-appointment information in:

• Their booking confirmation email (when booked online or through your clinic)
   

   

• The appointment reminder email (in the body of the email)
  
  
   
• After confirming their reminder via push notification, email or SMS

Post-appointment information:

• Patients will receive their post-appointment information in the form of an email. The email will be sent 2 hours after their appointment start time.
  
  

How do patients receive vaccine appointment reminders?

Vaccine appointment reminders operate the same way as standard appointment reminders — they are sent when reminders are enabled and will not send if reminders are turned off. The only difference is that they will contain pre-appointment information if you have pre-appointment information enabled. 

A patient can receive an appointment reminder in the form of a push notification, email or SMS for their vaccine appointment. This is the order that we will attempt to send the appointment reminders if they meet the criteria.

You can see how a reminder was sent and how patients responded in the HotDoc Dashboard. The status of the appointment reminders will also write back into your clinical software. For more information on this please see: How can I view the history of my sent appointment reminders?

Push Notification:

We will attempt to send a push notification to the patient's mobile device if they have the app installed on their phone, they booked their appointment through their HotDoc app and if you have push notifications enabled in your reminder settings in the Dashboard.

Push Notification

Once they open the push notification

Email reminders

If we cannot send a push notification, we will send an email appointment reminder if you have the patients email address listed in their patient file. They will also see 'pre-appointment information' in this email.

SMS reminder

If we're unable to send the reminder by push notification or email, we will send patients an SMS appointment reminder.

If you set up your flu vaccine appointments in the Flu > Vaccinations setup, we will automatically send flu vaccine reminder message, instead of a regular reminder message. The copy of the flu appointment reminder will be:

"Hi [first name], reminder of your Flu Vax appt at [Clinic] on [date] at [time]. Click to confirm and read pre-appt info [link]"

Example for Flu vaccines

Example for Covid vaccines

What the patient will see once they click the link to confirm/cancel

When will patients receive a vaccine consent form?

If you’ve enabled a vaccine consent form for COVID-19 or Flu appointments, patients will receive it at different stages before their appointment.

This can be enabled during setup, or at any time afterwards, in the Vaccinations section of your Dashboard.

Patients may receive the consent form at the following times, depending on whether they booked online or through your clinic, and whether they are a new or existing patient:

1. Immediately after booking (in the HotDoc app or website)

   • If a patient books online and your clinic does not require manual approval in the Sidebar, they’ll see a prompt to complete the consent form as soon as their appointment is confirmed.
   • If the patient is new, they’ll be required to complete two forms: the consent form and the new patient registration form.

   
   

2. Within the HotDoc app

   • If booked online as a new or existing patient, we will show a prompt to complete the form/s in the HotDoc app. The patient may need to click the drop-down arrow to see this prompt.
   • If the patient booked through your clinic and meets these requirements , they will see this prompt to complete the form/s.

3. When the appointment syncs with your PMS
   • As soon as we sync the appointment (whether booked online or through the clinic), the patient will receive a prompt via push notification, email or SMS with a link to fill in the consent form.
   • If they're a new patient they will also receive the new patient form. To enable this, see: Send form as soon as the patient books. 
   • Note: For patients that book directly through your clinic, we recommend inputting their email address into their patient file so the patient can receive as many prompts as possible. If they don’t, they’ll only be prompted after confirming their appointment via the link in their SMS reminder, sent 24 hours prior to their appointment.
4. In the booking confirmation email

   • All patients receive a booking confirmation email after their appointment is confirmed. This will include a link to the consent form.

5. When confirming their appointment reminder

   • If a patient confirms their appointment reminder, they’ll see a prompt to complete the consent form at that time (if it hasn’t already been completed).

6. A follow-up reminder if forms are still incomplete

   • If the appointment date is approaching and the consent form hasn’t been completed, we’ll send another prompt via push notification, email, or SMS to remind the patient.

   
   

Consent form support articles & resources 

For more information on editing, processing, downloading or the expected behaviour of write-backs into the patient file for your vaccine consent forms, please see the following articles for further assistance:

• How to edit a form
• Forms Sidebar Workflow 
• Downloading PDF form submissions 
• Why didn't some fields transfer from the form to the patient file?
• How do I add the consent form to COVID-19 Dose 2 and 3 appointments?
• How do I create and send an Influenza Vaccine Consent Form?