Who can do this?
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All users and access levels: Can view and edit
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Full Access: Can add new reminder setting levels
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SMS reminders require Halaxy credits
You can automatically send SMS or email reminders to your patients to help them keep track of their upcoming appointments. With an estimated 98% open rate, SMS appointment reminders are an effective tool to significantly reduce no-shows and cancellations.
You can fully customise your reminder settings according to your needs, including what you send, when you send them and how you send them.
Tip
Want to change the text in your reminders? Get your wording exactly how you want it by customising your reminder templates.
The following reminders can be sent to patients:
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New appointment: Notifies the patient when a new appointment is made and sends automatically when an appointment is created in your calendar.
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Changed appointment: Notifies the patient when an appointment is changed.
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Pre-appointment: Notifies the patient of their booking details at a pre-selected time before an appointment. Two-way responses for pre-appointment reminders can be enabled, which allows the patient to send a response to confirm or cancel the appointment.
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Waiting list invitation: Notifies the patient on the waiting list with an invitation for an available appointment time, and allows them to confirm or decline the invitation via two-way response. Waiting list invitations are sent manually via SMS only.
SMS messages cost 1 credit for the first 160 characters. If your message is longer than this, it costs 1 credit for every 153 characters. Make sure to enable automatic top-up of credits so you never have to worry about your SMS messages not being sent out.
There is no charge for receiving patient responses and sending email reminders.
You can configure appointment reminders for your practice group or for individual practitioners.
To do this, follow the steps below.
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Click Settings > Reminders.
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By default, your practice group settings appear. Under Actions, click the
pencil icon for the reminder type you want to set up.
(Note: If you want to set up reminder settings for an individual practitioner, click Add New Level in the top right and select the practitioner.)
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In the pop-up, tick the Message Type you want to send for the reminder type. Ticking any Message Type will enable the reminder for this reminder type.
(Note: Pre-appointment reminders have an additional message type called Two-Way Response which allows replies to be received from patients and determines their attendance. For more details on two-way reminders, see Switch from one-way to two-way SMS reminders.)
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Configure the rest of your reminder message template. (See linked article for more details on reminder message templates.)
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Click Save.
Your appointment reminders are now set to automatically send to your patients according to your preferences. For a more in-depth guide on reminder settings, see Guide to reminder settings.
Note
Practitioners who don’t have their own individual reminder settings use the group reminder settings by default.
Give patients the nudge they need at just the right times. Your reminder settings start with a single pre-appointment reminder, but you can easily add more to keep patients informed and increase attendance. Multiple pre-appointment reminders help ensure every appointment runs smoothly, eliminating no-shows.
Follow the steps below to create extra pre‑appointment reminders:
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Click Settings > Reminders.
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At the bottom-right of the Appointment Reminders section, click on Add Reminder.
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In the pop-up, tick the Message Type you want to send for this pre-appointment reminder.
(Note: Pre-appointment reminders have an additional message type called Two-Way Response which allows replies to be received from patients and determines their attendance. For more details on two-way reminders, see Switch from one-way to two-way SMS reminders.)
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Enter the time when you want the reminder to be sent before the appointment. You can click the dropdown to choose between days before or hours before the appointment time.
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Configure the rest of your reminder message template. (See linked article for more details on reminder message templates.)
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Click Save.
Your pre-appointment reminders are now set to send a message to your patients before their appointment. For a more in-depth guide on reminder settings, see Guide to reminder settings.
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