Artera makes it easy for patients to communicate with you regarding their appointments. Your Practice can seamlessly follow up on reschedules and cancellation requests to ensure patients receive the care that they need. 

When configuring Appointment Triggers, you will build several appointment reminders. These messages allow the patient to confirm an appointment or request to cancel/reschedule. This is accomplished within Artera by including one of the Smart Phrases below in a message to the patient:

• {eventConfirmText}

• {eventConfirmLink} 

Artera recommends using the {eventConfirmText} Smart Phrase in your Appointment Triggers for text and voice as this leads to higher patient response rates and confirmed appointments. However, some customers prefer to use {eventConfirmLink}. Click here to learn more about these confirmation Smart Phrases. 

{eventConfirmLink} Behavior

{eventConfirmLink} can be used in SMS, voice, or email Triggers. 

• For SMS and email, the patient will be able to click on the link to confirm, cancel, or reschedule their appointment.

• For voice, the Smart Phrase behaves like {eventConfirmText} (e.g. "To confirm your visit please press 1, to cancel your visit please press 5, to repeat this message please press 9".) 

NOTE: {eventConfirmLink} must be used in email Triggers. Patients cannot confirm, cancel, or reschedule their appt with {eventConfirmText} if used in an email.

Let’s review how patients can interact with the confirmation link delivered to their mobile device via the {eventConfirmLink} Smart Phrase. 

Appointment Confirmation Message

The confirmation link is delivered to the patient by an Appointment Trigger or manually by a user. 

When the patient clicks the link, Artera routes them to a browser page with a Google map of their appointment's location, any relevant details, and the opportunity to either confirm, cancel, or reschedule the appointment. The options available to the patient depend on how you have configured the Appointment Status Options Setting at the Default or Practice-level. 

As displayed above, when enabled, the Default Setting of Show Patient a Map of Appointment Location will display to the patient a Google map of their appointment location so they can take the location of their appointment into consideration when determining whether or not to confirm the appointment. By default, this setting is enabled.

However, when this setting is disabled, the Google map will not appear. Instead, a "View Map" option is displayed once the patient confirms their appointment. Clicking this will open the patient's map application on their mobile device and pinpoint to the address of the appointment. Click here to learn more.

If Merged Messaging is enabled for a Trigger, the link delivered to patients will encompass all appointments scheduled for that day. Opening the link will allow patients to navigate, using the arrows, to each appointment scheduled on that day to view the appointment information. 

When the patient makes their selection, it will apply to all appointments related to that merged message. For example, if the patient selects "Confirm" for the first appointment, the second appointment will automatically be confirmed. Alternatively, if the patient selects "cancel," both appointments will be cancelled.

NOTE: If you would like the patient to be able to confirm or cancel appointments independently, do not merge messages containing the {eventConfirmLink} Smart Phrase. 

Here is what a patient will see if they confirm, reschedule, or cancel an appointment:

These pages can be rendered in English and Spanish. Patients with a language preference of Spanish will view the screens in Spanish instead.

When navigated to the "Scheduled" view, here is what you will see in Artera for each of the selections made by a patient:

Appointment Viewed

Appointment Confirmed

Request to Reschedule

Request to Cancel