Engagement makes it easy to manage and communicate with patients as individuals and families. Engagement will message whoever is listed as the Guardian in the Family Settings of the Engagement patient card. This is typically whoever is listed as the Guarantor in your practice management software (Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental).
Important things to note about family settings in Engagement:
Engagement recognizes families as they have been set up in your practice management software (PMS). Patients who are part of the same family will have access to view other family member forms in the Patient Portal.
If an adult patient does not want other family members to be able to see their forms in the portal, they should be removed from the family in the PMS.
To encourage security and ensure that patients are receiving reminders and other automated communication, each adult patient should utilize their own phone number at your practice.
Watch this short video to learn how to manage and update Family Settings.
Update Family Members in the Patient Card
You can update associated family members in the Engagement patient card by following the steps below:
Click on the Patients dropdown in the Engagement left side menu, then choose Patient Finder
Click on the patient's name to open their patient card
Click on the Settings gear icon in the upper right corner of the patient card
Click on the Family settings section
Add or remove the current dependents from the Guardian. If a patient is removed as a dependent from the Guarantor's patient card, communication will be sent directly to each independent patient
Family Appointment Reminders
Patients who are listed as a Guarantor with dependent family member(s) will receive combined appointment reminder communications as long as each family member's appointment starts within 1 hour of each other.
For example, patient Jenny Foster is listed as a Guardian with her two kids Sutton and Sage labeled as her dependents. Jenny is labeled as their Guarantor.
Jenny and her kids are scheduled for three appointments today. Because Jenny is the Guarantor, she is the only patient in this family who will receive this consolidated appointment reminder message:
"Sage (3:10 PM), Sutton (3:20 PM), Jenny (3:30 PM), just a reminder that you have an appointment with Perfect Dental today at 3:10 PM."
You can review the combined appointment reminder message in the Communication log of the patient card.
If you would like to set up patients to receive independent appointment reminders (not combined), please contact Support (support@dentalintel.com).