Reminders and confirmations
The message goes out by itself, and the answer comes back to the calendar
You retype nothing, and you do not check in the evening whether it arrived. The patient gets a link, taps one thing, and the visit changes state in your calendar.
What actually happens
Four things, of which the third is the one you will ask about.
A confirmation on booking, a reminder before the visit
The first message goes when the visit is booked - by you, or by the patient on your booking page. The second goes before the visit itself, at a time you set once for the whole practice.
Email first, SMS second - and that is a decision about cost
If the patient has an email address on file, the message goes by email, because email costs nothing. SMS is for the ones who do not. That is why collecting email addresses genuinely lowers your bill rather than just tidying the record.
One link covers one visit and expires with it
The link is not a login and it opens nothing else. It is cryptographically signed for that one visit, so forwarding it will not open somebody else's record or your calendar, and after the visit it stops working.
A missed call gets a text with a link
When somebody rings during a visit and you do not pick up, they can get a message with a booking link. The telephone stays a normal way to make an appointment - it just stops requiring you to ring back between patients.
What the patient sees
A page with one visit on it: when, with whom, what for and where. Three buttons underneath - confirm, reschedule, cancel. Rescheduling shows free slots from your schedule, and only the ones you marked public. They install nothing and create no account.
An unconfirmed visit shows in your calendar as unconfirmed rather than blending into the rest. That is the information reminders exist to produce: not "we sent it", but "this person has not answered".
Reminders
Questions
How many text messages does the subscription include?
I am not publishing that yet. SMS is billed at cost, and the allowance appears once the first practice produces a real per-visit message count. A number written today would be a guess I could be held to later.
Does the patient need an account?
No. Everything happens through the link in the text or the email. There is no password, no app and nothing to install.
Can I send a reminder by hand?
Yes, from the visit itself. The automation exists so that you do not have to, not to stop you.
Get started
Start with your own week
Create an account, enter your working hours, and mark which of them a patient can see. The first ten practices pay nothing for six months.