How to Set Up SMS Appointment Reminders

Important: If your practice uses Patient Manager to send custom appointment reminder emails, do NOT perform this procedure. 

Appointment Reminders provide an easy way to remind patients about their scheduled appointments by sending text messages to their mobile phone. This feature also includes the ability for patients to confirm their appointments by responding to the SMS reminder.

To set up SMS appointment reminders:

1. From the Administration tab, select eServices > Appt. Reminders.
2. Click Enable Now, and an available phone number will be automatically selected for the practice based on the customer’s primary location. (See note below.)
3. Click Complete Setup. 
4. In the Exclusions section:
   --Select the Exclude Patients with Confirmed Appointments option.
   --In the Don’t Resend Within: field, click the drop-down box and select an option.
5. In the Send Automatically section:
   --Select the When Appointment Is Scheduled option to send the SMS reminder at that time.
   --In the Before Appointment: field, click the drop-down box and select an option.
   --In the Delivery Window: field, enter the start and end times for SMS messages to be sent.          Note: Enter the Times as hh AM and hh PM.
6. Click Save.
   

Note: Numbers are selected based on the location’s associated area code, city, and state. This number is used as the Sender when appointment reminders are sent to patients. If, for some reason, the customer does not like the selected number, the process can be cancelled and started again, and the software will select the next available number.