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🎞️ View video tutorial: Patient appointment communications
There are 5 types of notifications: Appointment, Sending Qnaire, Referral, Portal and Pathway (virtual visits). If your clinic is using CHR Connect, there is also a Billing (new bill) notification. They come pre-configured with default text and variables for both email and SMS, but you can customize them. If you have French enabled in your CHR, you can customize both the English and French notifications.
You can customize appointment notifications and reminders for all appointment types (General) or by specific appointment type. For example, in the general Appointment Confirmation notification template, you could include parking information. In the Appointment Reminder template for a new patient appointment type, you could include what the patient needs to bring to their appointment, such as a list of their current medications.
You can customize the notification templates for email and SMS separately. When the communication is sent, it goes to the patient's preferred notification method.
📌 Note: If you have CHR Connect Pro patients may also receive push notifications. You cannot customize the content of the push notification.
⚠️ Important: Some telecommunications service providers may filter the SMS messages based on content, and the patient will not receive the notification. For example, a telecommunications service provider may not send an SMS message that contains drug-related words (e.g. cannabis) or that refers to a prescription drug (e.g. Ozempic). If patients are not receiving SMS notifications, check the content of the message and make necessary changes so it is not filtered out by the telecommunications service provider.
Type of notification | Description |
Appointment (except Appointment Reminder and Appointment Post Reminder) | Appointment notifications are triggered by the appointment status. For example, when the appointment is first created and the status is Confirmed, the Appointment Confirmation notification is triggered. Then if the appointment status changes to Cancelled, the Appointment Cancellation notification is triggered.
By default, the Appointment notifications show the Location Information and Patient Actions.
The same default text is used for eBooking. For more information, go to Customizing appointment notification details. |
Appointment: Appointment Reminder and Appointment Post Reminder | By default, each appointment type has a 1 Day Prior appointment reminder set. You can schedule additional ones as needed, pre and post-visit. Each scheduled reminder uses the Appointment Reminder notification template or the Appointment Post Reminder notification template.
In addition, you can create a unique Reminder message for each scheduled reminder. This is configured in the Appointment Type and not the appointment notification. The Reminder message is included in the Appointment Reminder notification template using the Reminder Message variable.
💡 Tip: You can also disable the default appointment notification for specific appointment types. This prevents sending multiple confirmations to a patient for multiple appointments they have for the same day.
For more information, go to Customizing appointment reminders for an appointment type. |
Sending Qnaire | The default message that is sent when you schedule or send a Qnaire manually. A link to Start Qnaire and a Qnaire List are included by default. |
Referral | The default message that is sent to patients when they are referred to your clinic, informing them about their referral status.
For more information, go to Customizing patient referral notifications. |
Portal | The notification the patient receives telling them they have a new portal message.
For more information, go to Sending messages to patients through the patient portal.
The One Time Password and Read Message Button variables are included by default and allow the patient to access your message. ⚠️Important: Do not remove these variables. |
Pathway | The Virtual Visit Invitation is sent five minutes before a virtual visit appointment and includes Virtual Visit Instructions and Virtual Visit Actions variables by default.
⚠️ Important: Do not remove the Virtual Visit Actions or the patient won’t be able to access their appointment. |
💡 Tip: When configuring the notification templates, you can copy and paste text from one notification to another, or from a document outside of the CHR. However, you cannot copy and paste the variables; if you do, the links will break and the variable does not pull information.
Steps
1. From the main menu, click Settings > Notifications. By default, notifications for Patients are displayed.
💡 Tip: For information about configuring provider notifications, see Auto-notifying providers of schedule changes.
2. To configure a notification for all appointment types, ensure Appointment type is set to General and then click Default to Edit email or Edit SMS. (If the notification is already customized, click Customized).
3. To configure a notification for a specific appointment type, click General and select the appointment type from the list. Then click Same as General to Edit email or Edit SMS. (If the notification is already customized, click Customized).
4. Based on your selection, the Edit email notification or Edit SMS notification window appears, showing the default text for that specific notification (e.g. Appointment Confirmation, Appointment Change etc.)
📌 Note: If your clinic has French enabled, both the English and French default notifications are displayed.
5. Click into the Message field to make any changes to the body of the message. For emails, you can also edit the Email Title (subject).
💡 Tips:
To delete a variable, click after the variable and press Backspace {delete}.
For email, use the formatting bar at the top as needed (e.g. bold, italic, bulleted list, add hyperlinks etc.).
For SMS, you can add a hyperlink by typing the URL and pressing Enter {Return}.
6. To add variables, click the Variables button above the message and select a variable from the list. For more information on the available variables and their actions, refer to Variables for notification templates.
7. For email notifications, click Preview to see how the message will appear when sent to the patient.
📌 Note: For clinics with French enabled, click the downward arrow to select the language to preview.
8. To discard your changes and revert to the default notification, click Reset to default. Or, if the notification is for a specific appointment type, click Reset to General.
💡 Tip: If you have customized both English and French notifications and want to reset both of them to the default, click Delete Custom Texts.
9. Click Save when you are finished making changes. In the Notifications window, Customized is displayed next to the notification you just configured.
Updated November 13, 2024