Setting Up Appointment Types, Notifications, and Reminders

Overview

You can control which appointment types are available in your Cerbo system when adding appointments to the calendar, and for online appointment requests.

Every event in Cerbo can have one automated (1) email notification, (2) email reminder, and (3) SMS reminder. These messages and other schedule type settings can be configured by going to 
Admin > Manage > Schedule Types.

Related Articles

• Defining Work Schedules

Table of Contents

• Setting Up your Appointment Types
• Setting up Appointment Notifications and Reminders
• Email Notification and Reminder Variables
• SMS Reminder Variables

Video

Details

Setting Up your Appointment Types

Appointment types are managed under Admin > Manage > Schedule Types. From here, you can control the appointment name, default duration, calendar color, sort order, and other settings.

The appointment name on the portal can match the internal EHR name or be customized to clarify abbreviations to help patients choose the correct visit.

Tip: You can include pricing or visit length in the name for quick patient reference.

The default appointment length auto-fills on the calendar and it can also determine how much time is required if patients request appointments through the patient portal.

Tip: To add buffer time, include it in the default duration and list only the visit length in the portal name (for example, an Office Visit for 30-minutes blocks 40 minutes on the calendar).

Use sort order and color to organize appointment types for easy reference. Group similar appointment types with the same color and sort order. Appointments display in ascending sort order (starting with 0), and those with the same number appear alphabetically.

If an appointment type is marked as telemedicine, the telemedicine checkbox is automatically selected, generating a Cerbo telemedicine link for Cerbo's native telemedicine feature that’s included in appointment notifications and reminders.

Then there are a number of appointment type settings related to online appointment requests:

• Providers who use this appointment type - for their availability to show correctly online, the providers with whom this type of appointment is available must be selected here. You can select multiple by holding down the Ctrl key (PC) or Command key (Mac).
• Allow pts to schedule on portal - controls whether the appointment type should be available for patients to request via the Patient Portal.
• Allow pts to schedule on embedded scheduler - controls whether the appointment type should be available for people to request directly from your clinic website (without logging into the Patient Portal). 
• Is this a class/ group appointment - if an appointment is set to be a class/ group appointment, then there can be multiple of that type of appointment scheduled for the same time in the calendar. You can specify the max number of appointments before the time is no longer considered to be available for additional requests.
• If patients can select this appointment type in the self-scheduling system, display this message when they select this appointment type - this is an additional message that, if set, displays directly below the appointment type selection drop down menu in the Patient Portal (or website-embedded scheduler). It can be used to provide additional information to patients who are selecting this appointment type to request.

Finally, description of appointment type is optional and internal-only, and may be used to provide more information to clinic staff about the appointment type.

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Setting up Appointment Notifications and Reminders

A preview of these messages will appear after adding a patient to the "Schedule New Event" box.

A few notes before setting up these messages:

• The email notification goes out as soon as the appointment is added to the calendar. Reminder emails and SMS notifications can be scheduled to go out at anytime before the appointment.

• Note that the default SMS message does not include the practice name! You will want to set a custom SMS message that includes the practice name, see below for how to do that!

• Patients can always opt out of SMS appointment reminders by replying STOP to a text message from your system (as required by law). 

• Appointment notifications and reminders are a great place to remind your patient of anything they need to do or prepare for before their appointment - for example, to complete certain questionnaires on the Patient Portal.
• You can also include cancellation policies, directions, or anything else you want your patients to be aware of beforehand!

Steps

Step 1: Open the Admin menu and select Manage Schedule Types.

Step 2: Click Manage Default Notifications. Adjust settings here to apply to all appointment types.

Step 3: If you want notification settings for a specific appointment type, select it from the menu. This will override any messaging and settings under General. If you are changing default messages for multiple appointment types, you will need to save/ close the Manage Default Notifications window between editing each type.

Step 4: Customize the initial confirmation email, the reminder email, and the reminder text message. For each message, you can set whether it is on or off by default, the subject line, and the text of the message. 

For the Reminder Email and the Reminder Text, you can set how many hours before the appointment you would like it to be sent. Type your message directly in the text area. 

You can insert variables for appointment details as needed.

Step 5: Click Save to apply your changes. If you want, you can test the notifications by creating a new appointment and reviewing what is sent.

Variables

Here is a list of available variables that can be added to your emails and texts. Click on "Show Available Variables" for each message to see the variables available to use in your message.

Email Notification and Reminder Variables

[[pt_first_name]] Patient's First Name
[[pt_last_name]] Patient's Last Name
[[pt_preferred_name]] Patient's Nickname (or first name, if no nickname)
[[scheduled_type]] Appointment Name on Portal
[[scheduled_provider]] Scheduled Provider(s)
[[scheduled_location]] Scheduled Location (or "Office" if not set)
[[telemedicine_link]] Telemedicine Meeting Link (or "n/a" if not telemedicine)
[[confirm_link]] Confirm Appointment Link (entire link included for SMS)

SMS Reminders

The following variables are available for use in your text reminder templates:

If you do not use the [[datetime]] variable in your SMS reminders, the appointment date and time will automatically get included to the beginning of your message. 

[[datetime]] Appointment Date and Time
[[pt_first_name]] Patient's First Name[[pt_last_name]] Patient's Last Name
[[pt_preferred_name]] Patient's Nickname (or first name, if no nickname)
[[scheduled_type]] Appointment Name on Portal
[[scheduled_provider]] Scheduled Provider(s)
[[scheduled_location]] Scheduled Location (or "Office" if not set)
[[telemedicine_link]] Telemedicine Meeting Link (or "n/a" if not telemedicine)
[[confirm_link]] Confirm Appointment Link (entire link included for SMS)

The [[confirm_link]] text variable in an appointment message:

will insert a clickable link in the notification that the patient receives:

Once the patient clicks that link, it will automatically update the appointment status to "Confirmed". Note that you will want to initially add the appointment with a "Scheduled" status, or anything other than "Confirmed", in order to track when the patient uses that confirm link. You can change your default appointment statuses on a per-type basis under Admin > Manage > Schedule Types.

When the appointment is confirmed, the event on the calendar will change from dashed lines to a solid line. 

Details about the status change are also included in the Edit Log on the scheduled event: