Questions about automated message content

Questions about how automated messages are sent

Questions about new patient welcome notifications

Questions about appointment reminders

Questions about appointment confirmations

Questions about birthday messages

Questions about tracking automated messages

You can update the verbiage of the messages that are sent to patients automatically in Settings. From Settings, click on the Verbiage tab.

Click into each message type to view the content that is included. These will be separated as text messages, emails, and app messages. We recommend you keep these similar to maintain consistency when communicating with patients.

To edit these, simply select the Pencil icon.

Click here to learn more about customizing verbiage.

You cannot add images to your automated messages (with the exception of the Birthday Email Template). However, if you are messaging with a patient in Patient Chat, you can add an image and/or emoji to your message. In the Patient Chat messaging window, click on the image or emoji icon:

Click here to learn more about sending messages in Patient Chat.

Engagement allows you to use either the patient first name or the patient preferred name. You can apply this change globally so that all regards in patient messages will address them by their first or preferred name.

If you'd like to update your the patient name selection across all Verbiage, please do the following:

If your office is going to be closed for vacation, inclement weather, or anything else out of the ordinary that would require you to update your office hours, you can update your hours of operation in Settings > Practice Setup > Practice Info.

To update the content of your auto-responder messages, click on Verbiage > After Hours Auto Responder. Click on the pencil icon to make changes to the message content.

Click here to learn more about setting office hours and enabling the after hours auto-responder.

You cannot delete verbiage categories.

You can adjust the cadence of when automated messages are sent in your TouchPoints dashboard.

The cadence of appointment notifications can be adjusted (ie, 3 days before), but the specific time that the notification is sent out cannot be adjusted (ie, at 10:00am). If a message is scheduled to be sent before 8:00 AM on an appointment day, it will send the night before.

Notifications are defaulted to be sent out during the following times:

By default, Engagement uses a verified toll-free number for all communication sent to patients. The majority of practices use the Engagement provided number to ensure a more seamless experience. The reason we use a toll-free number is due to the verification process that prevents most false-positive blocking so that your patients receive your messages. You can find your verified toll-free number in Engagement Settings > Practice Setup > Practice Info in the SMS phone number field.

Having a verified toll-free number drastically reduces the number of false-positive blocks that may occur. Blocks on the verified toll-free number require intervention from our Support Team to resolve and take between 2-4 business days to resolve.

If an appointment is rescheduled, a new save-the-date message will be sent to the patient 10 minutes after the appointment time is changed. If the appointment is reverted back to its original time within 10 minutes, a new reminder will not be sent.

You can update what your new patient welcome message says in Settings > Verbiage > Appointment Scheduled - Welcome New Patient.

Be sure to update the text, email, and app versions of the message with the content you would like included so that you can ensure all of your patients receive the information they need regardless of how the message is delivered.

New patient welcome messages are sent to patients 10 minutes after their first appointment is scheduled.

Appointment date and time details are added to welcome messages by default, you do not need to add placeholders for this information.

Depending on the delivery channel that you select when setting up your automated appointment notifications (email or text), the patient will receive the reminder via that method as long as they have that method of communication on file.

For example, if a patient does not have an email address attributed to their file but you have selected a reminder to go out via email, the reminder will default to sending via text instead.

This ensures that your patients will always receive their reminders, even if they only have one method of communication on file.

It's important that automated appointment notifications are sent during appropriate time periods. Notifications are defaulted to be sent out during the following times:

On non-appointment days, automated appointment notifications are sent between 9:00 AM - 8:00 PM (local time zone).

On the day of the appointment, automated appointment notifications are sent between 8:00 AM - 8:00 PM (local time zone).

If a patient responds to a confirmation request text after hours with an accepted confirmation response (C, Confirm, Yes, Okay, Ok, Si, Confirmed, I’ll be there, 👍), Engagement will confirm the appointment with no out-of-office message.

However, if a patient responds to an appointment confirmation text after hours and their reply does not include an accepted confirmation response, the after-hours response will be sent.

Engagement recognizes the following confirmed responses:

These responses cannot be customized.

Engagement does not recognize cancellation-based responses from patients. If a patient replies to a confirmation request with anything other than a confirmed response, the system will reply with the verbiage included in your Confirmation Requests - Extra Verbiage message.

We recommend including instructions in this verbiage which instructs patients to call your practice should they need to reschedule their appointment.

When automated birthday messages are enabled, you can choose the time of day that the message is sent to the patient on their birthday. You may also choose to skip patients that have not been seen in a certain time period.

You can also choose the preferred delivery method via email or text. If delivery using the selected method is not possible, the alternative method will be used.

Click here to learn more about setting up birthday messages.

Birthday text message templates are limited to 560 characters and cannot include images or gifs. Birthday email templates do not have a character limit and can be fully customized with images, gifs, and more in the Email Builder. Because of these capabilities, your birthday messages will look different depending on how they are delivered to patients (text or email).

If a patient has been opted out manually in Engagement by a staff member, replied STOP to a text message, or clicked UNSUBSCRIBE in an email, you are not notified. There is currently no way to generate a list of patients that have opted out of communications.

You can find records of automated messages sent to patients in the Automatic tab of your Communication dashboard. Click here to learn more.

You can also review patient communication history by opening their patient card:

Learn more about tracking comm logs in the patient card.

There are several different reasons that a message could have failed to be delivered. From the patient card Communication Log, hover over the red ! icon in the Status column. You will see a text box with an explanation to the specific cause of the failure and can take action from there to resolve it.