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Setting up Automatic Appointment Reminders and Confirmations
Setting up Automatic Appointment Reminders and Confirmations

How to set up automatic appointment reminders and confirmation messages

Shelley Withington avatar
Written by Shelley Withington
Updated over a week ago

What is the difference between reminders and confirmations?

An automatic appointment reminder is a text or email that is sent ahead of a patient's appointment to remind them of their appointment and will usually direct them to the Dentally Portal to sign any necessary forms ahead of their arrival.

An automatic confirmation message refers to the ability to send an SMS that your patients can reply to confirming their attendance at the practice. This is set up under the confirmation section in your practice settings.


Automatic Appointment Reminders

To set up your appointment reminders you need to have Level 4 (Administrator) permissions.
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Go to Settings > Practice Settings>Patient Communication>SMS Appointment Reminders.
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appointment reminder set up
  • Set the time the automatic reminders are to be sent, from the day before to up to 30 days before

  • Choose how many days before the appointment you wish the patient to be reminded. Remember the reminder goes out at the time of the appointment, so a patient being seen at 14:00 on Tuesday will receive a reminder at 14:00 on Monday if you set the reminder to "1 day before".

  • Set the SMS message text.

  • Use the data tags in your message.

  • The use of data tags in messages may cause the length of the message to vary.

  • Data tags allow you to personalise the message.

  • Remember that a long SMS message is limited to 152 characters per message. When you send an SMS message over 152 characters the message will be split. For example, a 253 character message will be sent as 2 messages and you will be charged for 2 messages, however it will appear as 1 message to the recipient.

  • If a patient has their details set to "YES" to receive SMS, they will get a reminder by SMS.


Set up automatic Email Appointment Reminders

  • The number of days before the appointment for the reminder to be sent is set at the top of the page

  • Check the tick box to enable Email reminders

  • Tick to include a calendar invitation with the Email

  • Type the email reminder message - Remember to use the data tags.

  • If a patient has their details set to "YES" to receive email messages, they will get a reminder by email.


Automatic Appointment Confirmation

Appointments can be confirmed, when the patient has acknowledged their appointment. This can be done manually once the patient has been contacted, by clicking on the appointment status and changing the P to a C.

This can also be done automatically, by sending a text that the patient can reply to with a YES or NO and this will mark the appointment in the calendar accordingly.

  • Enable SMS Confirmations in this section

  • Set the amount of time before the appointment that you want the confirmation sent.

  • You can then set the wording of the SMS.

  • Remember that a long SMS message is limited to 152 characters per message. When you send an SMS message over 152 characters the message will be split. For example, a 253 character message will be sent as 2 messages and you will be charged for 2 messages, however it will appear as 1 message to the recipient.

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