Reminders cut no-shows more than any other setting. FrontDesk sends them for you by text, email or call, and reads the replies.
Turn them on
- Open Schedule → Confirmations, click the ⋯ menu and choose Settings. The page is titled Appointment reminders: "What patients hear from you before a visit, and what happens when they reply."
- Turn the master switch on. The badge reads Running (it is Off by default).
- Settings apply to the current location; other locations keep their own.
Reminders are included on every plan, Free too. On Free, text reminders count toward the plan's 100 texts a month, and call reminders toward its calling minutes. Text reminders need texting registration (Turn on texting); email reminders need a verified sender under Settings → Email (Set up email notifications).
Timings
Each timing row has hours before the appointment (1 to 168) and Send by chips: Text, Email, Call. The defaults are 24 hours and 2 hours before for each channel, with the 2-hour rows off. Only Text is switched on to start: a locked chip means that channel is off, so open Email or Automated call under the messages and click Turn on. Click Add another reminder for extra rows for extra reminders and delete the ones you do not want. The scheduler runs every five minutes.
Texts and calls go between 8am and 9pm in the client's local time. One whose time falls at night goes at 8am instead, or at about 8:45pm the evening before when 8am would be less than an hour before the visit, in your day-before wording. Two reminders moved to the same 8am reach the client once (a timing set to both Text and Call still does both), and a reminder a team member asked for at night, which goes at 8am, counts as that morning's: a scheduled text or call at that 8am, moved there or due from 8:00 to 8:14, doesn't go. One moved to the evening before is skipped when another reminder reached the client in the 12 hours before. Emails go at their time.
Messages
Write the text, the email (subject and body) and the call script with merge fields in double braces:
| Field | Becomes |
|---|---|
{{patientName}}, {{patientFirstName}} | the client's name |
{{practiceName}} | the name clients know you by: your organization name, or the location's Name clients see (Settings → Client Portal), not the location's own name |
{{practicePhone}} | the location's phone number |
{{appointmentDate}}, {{appointmentTime}} | when |
{{appointmentType}} | the service |
{{providerName}} | who |
{{telehealthLink}} | the video visit link |
Click a field chip on the page to copy it. For the service, type {{appointmentType}}. Spaces inside the braces are fine; a field the message doesn't fill goes out as typed, as the preview under Settings → Client Notifications shows.
The default text: "Hi {{patientName}}, this is a reminder from {{practiceName}} about your appointment on {{appointmentDate}} at {{appointmentTime}}. Reply CONFIRM to confirm or call us if you need to reschedule."
The email body opens every email reminder, same-day ones included. Left blank, each email keeps its standard opening.
Call reminders are read in the voice you pick and end with "Press 1 to confirm, or press 2 if you need to reschedule". Call back if nobody answers retries (twice, 30 minutes apart, by default). Call reminders use your plan's staff calling minutes.
Replies
FrontDesk reads text replies to a reminder for you, ignoring capitals:
| Reply | What happens |
|---|---|
| YES, Y, C, CONFIRM, 1 (also yeah, yep, yup, si, oui, or "yes please") | The appointment is confirmed and the client gets your We text back when they confirm message. |
| R, RESCHEDULE, CHANGE, MOVE, NEW TIME | The appointment is marked as needing a new time (it isn't cancelled, and no late-cancellation fee applies), and the client gets your We text back when they ask for a new time message (blank: a team member will contact them). |
| NO, N, X, 0 | Follows your reminder's wording: a request for a new time when the reminder says "NO to reschedule", otherwise a cancellation (below). |
| CANCEL, or any reply that says "cancel" | The appointment is cancelled and the client gets your We text back when they cancel message. Your cancellation policy applies, and the opening can be offered to your waitlist. |
| A word you added under Counts as confirmed | Confirms, like YES (as the whole reply or its first word). |
| A word you added under Counts as a decline | Cancels, like CANCEL, but only when it is the whole reply. |
| Anything else, including questions | It lands in the Inbox as needing a reply from a person. |
Mark the appointment confirmed automatically off (the Auto-confirm switch on the Confirmations page is the same setting): a YES waits in the Inbox for a person and the visit stays as it was. Add them to the waitlist when a reply cancels puts the client on the waitlist for that service, from the day after the cancelled visit. To stop the texts back altogether, turn off Answer replies automatically under Settings → Client Notifications → Reminder reply responses: the visit still changes, and nothing is texted back. Replies to a waitlist offer follow it too: a YES still books the opening and a NO still declines it, nothing is texted back, and a YES lands in the Inbox as needing a reply so your team can tell the client.
What a NO means. A plain NO follows what the reminder told the client. If it says NO to reschedule (the built-in wording FrontDesk sends when a reminder template is left empty: "Reply YES to confirm or NO to reschedule"), NO marks the visit as needing a new time: no cancellation and no late-cancellation fee. The standard template, "Reply CONFIRM to confirm or call us if you need to reschedule", doesn't mention NO, so with it a plain NO cancels. If you want NO to mean reschedule, say so in your reminder.
Which visit a reply is about. A reply only acts on the visit whose reminder was the last text you sent that number. If anything else was sent after the reminder (a staff message, a payment or form link, a booking confirmation), the reply goes to the Inbox for a person instead.
Group sessions. A reply changes only that client's place in the session. A group client who asks for a new time (R, or NO to a "NO to reschedule" reminder) comes off the session with no fee, and is told the team will be in touch; a group session can't be moved for one person.
See Appointment confirmations.
On a call reminder, pressing 1 confirms and 2 asks for a new time.
Video visits
Telehealth appointments also get a join-link reminder ten minutes before the visit. For a visit before 8:10am that text goes the evening before, and it names the day ("starts at 7:00 AM on Tuesday, October 6").
Send now
Run now on the Confirmations page sends anything due immediately, useful after changing settings.