Create an Appointment Reminder Notification

Run notify

You can run the Patient Notification Center by typing notify at a command prompt. PCC Support can also add the program to your Partner windows.

Review Your Notifications

The first screen of notify displays all of your current, active notifications.

You can see each notification’s name, a summary of the notification type, when the contact will go out next, whether the notification is recurring or one-time, and when the notification will expire.

Old Notifications?: Press [fkey title=’F4′ subtitle=’Make Inactive’ display=’inline’ /] to expire a notification and turn it off. You can also press [fkey title=’F6′ subtitle=’View Inactive’ display=’inline’ /] to jump to a list of inactive, or past notifications. You could then edit an inactive notification, change details using the tools described below, and make it active again.

Press [F1 – Add Notification]

Press F1 to create a new notification.

If you wish to edit an existing notification, select it and press F2.

Select an Appointment Reminder Message Type

Enter an asterisk (*) and choose a message type from the pull-down menu.

You can choose to send appointment notifications with or without the physician’s name.

After selecting a message type, you will see a summary of the message’s contents.

Press F1 to continue.

Select How Far in Advance to Notify

How far in advance of a patient’s appointment should the reminder be sent? Enter a number of days.

Press F1 to continue.

Select Visit Reasons

Should all well visit reasons receive this notification? What about sick visits, or rechecks? Select all the visit reasons that should trigger the appointment reminder you are creating.

You can also press [fkey title=’F3′ subtitle=’Select All’ display=’inline’ /], and then use F2 to deselect visit reasons that should be excluded.

Press F1 to continue.

Specify Physicians

Select all physicians whose scheduled patients should receive reminders.

You can press [fkey title=’F3′ subtitle=’Select All’ display=’inline’ /], and then use F2 to deselect physicians who’s appointments should be excluded.

Press F1 to continue.

Note: Partner uses the scheduled physician for the appointment. You can also limit by primary care physician later on in the steps below.

Select Scheduling Locations

Select all scheduling locations for appointments that should receive reminders.

Press F1 to continue.

Exclude by Patient Status Flag

Select any patient flags that should block a reminder from being sent to the patient.

Any flags that are already configured to exclude patients from reports will already be selected for you. You can select or deselect any status flag to control who will not receive notification messages. Read Exclude Patients from Recaller and Notify to learn more.

Press F1 to continue.

Optional: Add Additional Criteria

If you would like to limit your reminder list by primary care physician, insurance plan, a billed diagnosis, an account flag, or some other criteria, use the asterisk to select that criteria and then press F1 to define it.

If you do not need additional criteria, press F1 to continue.

Indicate One-Time or Recurring Notification

Select whether this notification is a one-time notification or a recurring notification, and then choose related delivery options.

If you select a One-Time Patient Notification, enter an exact date and a time of day for the notification. Note that TeleVox needs at least a three-hour advance warning and a three-hour window for delivery. Therefore, create your notification early in the day if you wish to send it on the same date.

If you select Recurring Patient Notifications, you can set the notification to be daily, weekly, or yearly, and enter start and end dates for activating the notification.

Appointment Reminders Should Recur, and Recur Daily: Most offices interested in using notifications for appointment reminders will want to create a recurring, daily notification. Then, all patients who meet your criteria and have upcoming appointments will receive a reminder. If an appointment reminder is not recurring or not daily, some patients will not receive reminders.

Optional: Specify Delivery Method

Next, you can specify the preferred delivery method for the notification.

Enter up to four possible delivery methods. Partner will send the first valid method it finds to TeleVox.

By default, Partner looks for a patient confidential communication preference. If the patient’s preference is set to “No Preference”, then Partner will use the first available phone number in the Custodian account. This default delivery method behavior can be defined in the Patient Notification Center section of the Configuration Editor (ced).

Review Details

Review the details for your notification.

The details include an estimated number of contacts made. This estimate may or may not be useful when you create recurring notifications, as unusual circumstances or your office’s schedule might make the numbers seem low.

Press F1 to continue, or F8 to step back through notification settings.

Name Your Notification

Give your notification a name.

For ease of use later, you may want to name your notification based on its criteria. For example, your “Well Visit” or “Asthma Recheck” reminder.

Press F1 to save your new notification and return to the main screen.

Optional: Review and Edit Your Notification, or Make it Inactive

From the main screen, select your notification and press [fkey title=’F2′ subtitle=’Edit’ display=’inline’ /] to make changes.

You can also press [fkey title=’F4′ subtitle=’Make Inactive’ display=’inline’ /] to deactivate your reminder, or [fkey title=’F5′ subtitle=’Review Details’ display=’inline’ /] to look at the settings and options for a notification.