As an additional feature to TotalMD, you can add the capability to send and receive texts with your patients. Once the feature has been installed within your system, you will see the texting icon in the bottom right-hand corner of your TotalMD screen:
You will then see the Patient Messaging screen:
Text messaging is totally integrated with TotalMD, meaning that it will recognize any appointments made in TotalMD and messages sent and received in the system. This enables the system to automatically send text messages to your patients, based on the settings you choose. The messages are sent on the basis of the appointment being confirmed or unconfirmed. It can also send out birthday messages and you can text your patient back and forth within this screen.
Settings can be edited in the cog at the upper left-hand corner of the Patient Messaging screen:
Technical Support will help you fill in the first two tabs, Data Connection and Settings:
From within the Settings tab, if you click on change settings, you can change the hours you send the emails from your office. You can also choose to send texts automatically from within either the Settings or Change Settings screen:
You can also change the date format:
You can change the Time Format in this screen as well:
The Phone Precode is set to 1 automatically:
In the Appointment Reminders tab, in order for the system to automatically send your texts, you must have the Send Appointment Reminder Texts box checked:
You have options to set your Send 1st Reminder:
You have the same type of choices for your Send 2nd Reminder. In this case, you can also choose not to send this second message:
There are two separate messages that can be sent depending on whether the appointment has been confirmed or not:
You have several optional merge fields that you can use to customize your message(s) as well. Just keep in mind that one messages is counted at 160 characters. Anything over that will be sent as a subsequent message. You are free to change your messages at any time to customize them. With the Send Appointment Reminder Texts checked, these messages will go out to every appointment on your schedule, unless you exclude the patients telephone number, which will be covered later.
The next tab is the Birthday Text tab. If you check the Send Birthday Text box, the system will automatically send birthday texts to your patients. This message is also customizable and has merge fields. Again, 160 characters is the length of one text message.
In the Excluded Phone Number tab, you can add telephone numbers of patients that do NOT want to receive texts. If they subsequently change our mind, they can be removed as well.
By clicking the Add To the List button, you will get an Excluded Phone Number pop-up, where you will enter the telephone number you want to exclude:
Once you add the number, be sure and click the Save button.
To delete a number, simply highlight it and click Remove from List:
The last tab is the Test tab. From this tab, you can test the system more easily. You just need to remember to uncheck the Test Mode box when testing is finished.
Once you are finished making changes, click Save, which returns you to the main screen. In the top left of this screen you will see choices for which messages you will see:
In the right side of this screen you can see a running total of the number of messages you have sent and received for the current and one previous month.
The main screen will show you the texts that you have sent to your patients and/or the patient’s replies, depending on which of the above options you have chosen:
On the right-hand side, you can plug in an individual number and send custom texts to a particular patient:
Here are the messages that were sent and received to a particular number:
When a patient is texted from the scheduler and replies “Yes” to the text message, the status on the scheduler will change to confirmed and it will show that it was confirmed via text automatically.
If a patient also sends a direct message, you can go to the right-hand screen and send a custom text to address their concern. This is an interactive, direct text function happening in real time. Responses to and from this screen can take up to 30 seconds to happen.
If you have questions regarding this functionality of TotalMD, please contact our support or training departments at 800-613-7597 Option 2 for Support or Option 3 for Training. If you would like a printable copy of this document, please contact the Training Department.