A reminder profile is a preset list of reminders you can choose from to alert your patients of their upcoming appointments. Reminder profiles are easy to set up and provide an efficient way to remind your patients via email, text, and phone calls.
Creating patient reminders is easy but it requires two separate steps. Creating the reminder profile and then applying the reminder profile to the appointment.
Creating Reminder Profiles
1. Hover over the Schedule tab and click Reminder Profiles.
2. To create a new profile from scratch, click the grey +New Profile button.
3. Enter a name in the New Profile Name box.
4. To add new reminders click the green +New Reminder button.
5. Select the type of reminder from the dropdown. DrChrono offers one-way email, text, and phone calls.
6. Enter a number in the field between the reminder type and unit of time drop-down menus. This number will determine when the reminder goes out in relation to the rest of the settings.
7. Select a unit of time from the dropdown. This will determine when the reminder goes out in relation to the reminder selected.
8. Select when you would like the reminder to go out in relation to the date selected, either before or after.
In the example above, an email will go out 7 days before the scheduled appointment.
9. You can add multiple reminders by clicking the green +New Reminder button until you have all the reminders you want for one profile.
10. Once you're done, click the blue Save Reminder Profile button.
Below are examples of standard text, email, and voice reminders.
Editing Existing Reminder Profiles & Reminders
1. Select the reminder profile you would like to edit from the drop-down menu.
2. This will pull up all the reminders associated with the profile. You can edit a reminder, preview a reminder, or delete a reminder entirely.
3. Make the changes you need and click Save Reminder Profile.
Adding Additional Messaging to Email and Text Reminders
You can add additional information to text and email reminders.
1. Click Edit next to the email and/or text message reminder.
2. Enter the text you would like to add to the email message in the text box.
3. Click Preview to see what the message will look like.
Email: Text will be inserted between the end of the message and the closing of an email
Text Message: With a text message, additional text will be added to the end of the message.
Phone Reminders: You can't change or edit the phone reminder that is sent out. If you send out a phone reminder, here is the message that will be played for the customer:
This is an automated appointment reminder from “Provider’s Name”. You have an appointment with “Provider's Name” on “Day, Month, Date, Time”. If you need to reschedule your appointment please call “Office Number”. Please press 1 to confirm this appointment. Please press 2 if you are not a patient of “Provider’s Name”. Please press 3 if you would like to be directly connected to the office of “Provider’s Name”.
Applying Reminder Profiles
There are two ways to apply reminder profiles: by default and at the appointment level.
Applying Reminder Profiles by Default
You also have the option to set a reminder profile as Default. If this option is applied, reminders associated with that profile will be sent out to all patients without any other action needed.
Check the Default? box and click Save Reminder Profile.
Applying Reminder Profiles at the Appointment Level
1. Go to your schedule by clicking Schedule > Calendar.
2. Open an existing appointment or schedule a new one.
- Select the Appointment tab.
- Click the View Active Reminders checkbox.
- Select a profile from the Choose a Reminder Profile dropdown menu.
- Click Save & Close or Save.
Once the reminder profile is selected, you can, if needed, edit the reminders for the scheduled appointment.
Reminder Profiles on the iPad
When creating appointments from the EHR app and the Check-In app it will automatically apply the last used reminder profile to the appointment. If you don't want any reminders associated with the appointment, please log into the website and remove the reminders from the appointment.
Notes on Adding Text to Reminder Emails and Text Messages
Standard text reminders are limited to 140 characters. Customizing your text reminders may cause this limit to be exceeded, resulting in multiple text messages toward your monthly limit.
There is no text limit when adding additional text to email reminders. However, the editor for email reminders uses HTML. This means that if you would like to have your custom message rendered on different lines or in multiple paragraphs, you need to use a little bit of code with <br>. Otherwise, the message will be delivered in one paragraph.
Example 1: No use of <be>.
Example 2: Use of <br> for a new line.
Example 3: Use of <br> for a new paragraph.
