Patient Reminders by Phone (Automated Voice)

In addition to email reminders, free text reminders, and, paid text reminders (SMS text) Therabill also offers telephone automated voice reminders. Using automated reminders has been shown to reduce no-show appointments by up to 30% and allows you to see up to two additional patients per provider, per month. 

Phone automated voice reminders are an add-on service, please view current pricing here. This fee is charged per phone call sent, regardless of whether the recipient listens to the phone call or responds to it.

What is a phone automated voice reminder?

An automated voice reminder will dial the phone number that you specify for a client to remind them of an upcoming session (visit).  The recipient of the phone call will hear an automated voice reminding them of the appointment.  They will also have the ability to press 1 to confirm that they will be attending the therapy session or to press 2 to let you know that they will not be able to attend the therapy session (to turn this option off, please see: Turn off option to cancel session from reminders and client portal). 

Below is the transcript of what the recipient will hear (in an automated voice).

The recipient picks up the phone.

Automated Voice: <Your business name> would like to remind you of your upcoming appointment on <date of service> at <session start time>.  Please press 1 to confirm that you will be attending this appointment with <your business name> on <date of service> at <session start time>.  Please press 2 to indicate that you will not be able to attend this appointment that you have scheduled on <date of service> at <session start time>.

Recipient presses 1

Automated Voice: Thank you.  We will mark your appointment scheduled on <date of service> at <session start time> as confirmed and will let <your business name> know that you will be attending.  We look forward to seeing you at your appointment  Have a nice day and goodbye.

If the recipient presses 1, then the session will be marked as patient confirmed within Therabill. Patient-confirmed sessions will have a green border on your Therabill dashboard schedule. Therabill does not send you an e-mail for patient reminder confirmations by default, as this could result in a lot of e-mails being sent to your inbox.  If you would like to have Therabill send you an e-mail when a patient confirms that they will attend through the patient reminder, please see: Receive Confirmation Email for Patient Reminders.

Recipient presses 2

Automated Voice: Thank you.  We will send an e-mail to let <your business name> know that you will not be making the appointment scheduled on <date of service> at <session start time>.  However, this automated response should not be treated as a cancellation.  You should call <your business name> to let them know that you will not make your appointment as soon as possible to allow them time to change their schedules.  Have a nice day and goodbye.

If the recipient presses 2, then an automated e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address that you have on file with Therabill to let you know that the recipient has indicated that they will not be showing up for the appointment.  In addition, the session will be marked as patient canceled within Therabill. Patient-canceled sessions will have a red border on your Therabill dashboard schedule.

Limitations

Automated Voice

The automated voice is performed using text-to-speech software.  It is not perfect and it may not pronounce your name perfectly.

Therabill will not call the same phone number for a patient more than one time in a day.

If you set up more than one phone reminder for a patient and this results in more than one phone call on the same day for a patient to the same phone number, then Therabill will only make one phone call as a reminder for the session with the earliest date of service.

Therabill won't make early phone calls

Therabill will not make a phone call prior to 9:00 AM for any reason.  For same-day phone reminders, Therabill sends out the phone reminder 2 hours prior to the start time of the session.  Therefore, if a scheduled session has a start time on or before 11:00 AM and you have a same-day phone reminder, then Therabill will not make that phone call.

How to Set up Phone Reminders

Phone (automated voice) reminders are set up through the reminders form for the client.  

1. Go to Clients, then click Client List. 
   
2. In your Client List, find the client that you would like to create a phone reminder for and click the Client Tools icon. In the menu that appears, click on Reminders.
   
3. On the Client Reminder form, enter the parameters as described below.
   • Enter the number of days prior to a date of service that you would like the phone call to be made (i.e. enter 2 to make it read  Send 2 day(s) before a scheduled session to have a phone call sent two days prior to any date of service for that patient that you have scheduled in Therabill).  Enter 0 as the number of days to send out a same-day reminder.
   • Change the Delivery Method to Phone (Automated Voice) using the drop-down menu highlighted by the red arrow in the image to the right.
   • Enter the Phone number that you want Therabill to send the reminder to. This should be 10 10-digit phone number. Note: Do not include dashes.
   • Optionally, enter any phone extension. If an extension is entered, then the automatic dialer will wait 2 seconds after the phone is picked up and then automatically dial the extension you have entered followed by the pound sign. Note: Leave this field blank if a phone extension is not necessary.
     
4. Click Submit to create the reminder.
5. Once a reminder is created, you will see it listed under Current Reminders. You can delete the reminder by clicking the red trash can icon.
   
   
   

Create Multiple Reminders

You can create as many reminders for a patient as you wish simply by using the Add Client Reminders link under Manage Reminders (Client List > Actions > Batch Client Reminders).

You can also mix and match email, text, and phone reminders. For example, you can have Therabill send out an e-mail reminder 7 days before a session, send out a phone reminder 2 days before a session, and then send out a text message on the same day as a session. 

Therabill will not send out reminders for sessions that have already been patient-confirmed or patient canceled. If they confirm or cancel during any of the reminders, then subsequent reminders for that session will be ignored.