How to Use Appointment Reminders

Transcription

1 Click the links below to jump on that topic: Steps to set Appointment Reminder Steps to configure Patient Appointment Reminder feature Best Practices to follow Key Points to know Proprietary Notice Information: This document is provided for informational purposes only, and the information herein is subject to change without notice. While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained within this document is accurate, IHCS cannot and does not accept any type of liability for errors in, or omissions arising from the use of this information. Any questions regarding this document should be addressed to or call for customer service. Call for customer service or us at Page 1 of 11

2 HOW TO USE APPOINTMENT REMINDERS You can send reminders to patients prior to their booked appointments. In return, you can receive a response from the patient, whether the request is accepted or cancelled. You can send these reminders via phone call, text message, or . The patients can receive these appointment reminders from the facility they are registered with and can respond to the reminder. To set Appointment Reminder: Back 1. Login to InSync. 2. From the left pane, click the Scheduler icon. 3. The Scheduler screen appears. Click the Appointment Reminder icon from the top right corner of the screen. 4. The Patient Appointment Reminder screen appears. This screen displays current day s appointments booked for the patients. Note: In the practical scenario, you will need to have future appointments to set up an appointment reminder. It means that prior to clicking the Appointment Reminder icon you will have to change the date from the Schedule Appointment screen. 5. Select the Visit Profile from the drop-down list to view the appointments for a particular visit profile. 6. In the Scheduler field, do one of the following: To view the appointments for a specific provider, select the provider s name from the list. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 2 of 11

3 To view the appointments of all the providers, select All. 7. Select the Visit Status Filter as Pending, Confirm, or both by selecting the appropriate check boxes. Based on the selected visit status, patients appear in the grid below it. 8. Enter or select the date using the calendar icon and enter the time to set up a phone, , or text reminder. Note: The phone, , and text reminders are available only when configured. Configuration is done from the Practice Defaults screen. 9. Select the check box corresponding to the Patient Name in the Phone, , or Text columns to send phone call, , or text reminders respectively. You can also select the check boxes from the column heading to send the appointment reminder to all the patients at once. Note: If you have not recorded patient s phone number, mobile number, or ID, then the check boxes will appear as disabled. 10. You can also resend the reminder to the patients. To view the patient visits for which a reminder is already sent earlier, select the Include visits for which reminder is already sent check box. 11. After entering all the details, click Submit. 12. Click the Get Status button on the top right corner, to view the status of appointments for which appointment reminders are already sent and a response is received from patients. The status is displayed only for current and future appointments. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 3 of 11

4 HOW TO CONFIGURE PATIENT APPOINTMENT REMINDER FEATURE BACK To use the Patient Appointment Reminder feature, you must first configure it in your system. To configure Patient Appointment Reminder feature: 1. From the left menu items, select Administration > Setup > Practice. Call for customer service or us at Page 4 of 11

5 2. Click the Practice Defaults link. The Practice Defaults screen opens up. 3. From the Appointment Reminder Configuration Settings panel, the following three sections can be configured: A. Phone Reminder Setup B. Reminder Setup C. Text Reminder Setup Configuring Phone Reminder Setup: The Phone Reminder Setup section helps you configure settings such as, How prior to the appointment are the reminders to be sent to the patient? The (facility s office/cell) number that would be displayed on the patient s phone when receiving your call. At which time the reminders should be sent and so on. It may happen that the patient does not receive a call when transmitted. In that case, a voice mail can be sent to the patient. You can configure the voice mail settings under the Phone Reminder Setup section. Refer to the figure below. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 5 of 11

6 Fields Max Advance Notice Caller ID Retry Delay Phone Reminder Start Time Retry Count Phone Script for Live Answer Phone Script for Voice Mail Description Using this field, you can select the number of days. You can send the phone reminder either on the same day of the appointment or up to 5-days in advance. In this field, type the facility s phone number. This will be displayed on the patient s phone when receiving a call from the facility. Select the time duration to call back again in case of a call failure for any reason. You can either immediately retry, or retry after 3, 6, 12 or,14 hours. Enter the time in 24-Hour format; for example, 10:00 or 23:00 etc. This time will be displayed on the Patient Appointment Reminder screen. In this field, mention how many times the patient should be called in case of a call failure in the first attempt. You can set it up to one, two, or three times. If you don t want to call back after the first time, you can set it to 0. In this field, type the message that you want the recipient to hear when the call is transmitted. In this field, type the message that you want to send as a voice mail when the recipient is unreachable. Note: Keywords (for example: #OFFICE#, #NAME# etc.) used in the script are preconfigured and must not be changed at all. If required, you should only change the content in the remaining body structure. It is recommended to contact InSync EMR support to make any kind of changes in the script. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 6 of 11

7 Configuring Reminder Setup The Reminder Setup section helps you to set up an message reminder to the patient s ID. Refer to the figure below. Fields Max Advance Notice Sender Address Description Using this field, you can select the number of days. You can send the reminder either on the same day of the appointment or up to 5-days in advance. In this field, type the facility s address from where the will be sent to the patient. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 7 of 11

8 Subject Line Reminder Start Time Display Name Script In this field, type the subject line that you want to send in your , for example Appointment Reminder. Enter the time in 24-Hour format; for example, 10:00 or 23:00 etc. This time will be displayed on the Patient Appointment Reminder screen. In this field, type the name to display on the patient s when an is sent to the patient, for example your facility name. In this field, type the message that you want to send to the patient as a reminder. Note: Keywords (for example: $$NAME$$, $$APPDATE$$ etc.) used in the script are preconfigured and must not be changed at all. If required, you should only change the content in the remaining body structure. It is recommended to contact InSync EMR support to make any kind of changes in the script. Configuring Text Reminder Setup The Text Reminder Setup section helps you to set up the text reminders that are sent to the patients. Refer to the figure below. Fields Max Advance Notice Text Message Description Using this field, you can select the number of days. You can send the text reminder either on the same day of the appointment or up to 5-days in advance. In this field, type the text to be displayed on the patient s phone upon receiving the reminder from the facility. It is recommended to enter text only up to 130 characters. If the text exceeds 130 characters, the text message splits into 2 parts. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 8 of 11

9 Text Reminder Start Time Practice Short Name Enter the time in 24-Hour format; for example, 10:00 or 23:00 etc. This time will be displayed on the Patient Appointment Reminder screen. In this field, type the short name of the practice. This is useful only in cases of practices with long names as the long name may consume more space in the text message field resulting in splitting the message into 2 parts. This field is mandatory. If you feel your practice name is not long, you can use the same name as a short name. Note: Keywords (for example: #OFFICE#, #NAME# etc.) used in the script are preconfigured and must not be changed at all. If required, you should only change the content in the remaining body structure. It is recommended to contact InSync EMR support to make any kind of changes in the script. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 9 of 11

10 BEST PRACTICES TO FOLLOW WHEN WORKING WITH PATIENT APPOINTMENT REMINDER BACK The best practices to follow when working with the Appointment Reminder feature are as followed: 1. Configure Reminders Configure phone and reminders 2 days in advance and text reminder 1 day in advance. The purpose of configuring them at least a day in advance is to receive a response back from the patient (accept or cancel) when he/she receives your phone and text reminders. 2. Submit Reminders At the end of the day, submit the reminders for future appointments. For example, at the end of the day on Friday, open the Monday s scheduler and click Appointment Reminder icon. The Appointment Reminder screen displays Monday s appointments. Select the check boxes (Phone, , or Text) and click Submit. According to the configuration set, phone and reminders are sent to the patient on Saturday and text reminder are sent on Sunday. 3. Download Reminder Status At the beginning of each day, download the appointment reminder status. You will receive a message on the Schedule Appointment screen. Click Yes to download the status. In case you click No, you can still download the status from the Appointment Reminder screen. Click the Appointment Reminder icon and then click Get Status to download the status. 4. Send Last Minute Text Reminders At the beginning of each day, submit the text reminders for the same day appointments. For example, on Monday morning, open the Scheduler and click Today s Appointments. Click the Appointment Reminder icon. The Appointment Reminder screen displays Monday s appointments. Select the Text check boxes and click Submit. A text message will be sent to the patient for a reminder. These are actually last-minute reminders that won t demand response from the patient. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 10 of 11

11 KEY POINTS TO KNOW WHEN WORKING WITH PATIENT APPOINTMENT REMINDER FEATURE BACK Sr. No Key points to remember When you log into the system for the first time, a message Would you like to check Appointment Reminder status? pops up. You can click Yes or No as per your requirements. On selecting the check box provided, the message stops popping up again for next 24 hours. On the Patient Appointment Reminder screen, once you click the Submit button, you cannot revert back the action. Last minute text reminders do not require response; therefore, the text message content configured for such messages is different than the text messages sent in advance. If the text message exceeds the limit of 130 characters, the message splits into two parts when transmitted. You can exempt the patients from the Appointment Reminder service. This means the patient can opt for one or more services from Phone, , and Text. Keywords (for example: #OFFICE#, #NAME#, $$APPDATE$$ etc.) are preconfigured. You must not try to edit or delete these keywords. This may alter the workflow of the Patient Appointment Reminder service. It is recommended to contact InSync EMR support to make any kind of changes in the script. When the patient s mobile number, phone number, or is not recorded in the system, you will not be able to choose Phone, , or Text options on the Patient Appointment When the patient s mobile number is captured in the system, the phone/voice mail will never get diverted to the phone number even though the transmitted message to the mobile number is failed. The message is diverted to the phone number only when the mobile number is not captured in the system. On the Patient Appointment Reminder screen, you might observe the current date and time in all three options (Phone, , and Text) even though you might have configured the reminders in a day or 2 days in advance. This happens when you did not send the reminders on your scheduled day. When the patient confirms the appointment through phone or text reminder, the visit status automatically changes to Confirm. Call for customer service or us at support@insynchcs.com. Page 11 of 11