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Set-up Patient Communications in OptiMantra (basic set up)

Richard Abujasen
Updated

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This article looks at the different ways in which you can communicate with your patients in OptiMantra.


In Communications, you can leverage the patient portal and kiosk, the automated reminder emails and text messages to engage patients and improve your no-show rate


In Advanced Set-up, you can come back to create additional emails, patient tags, draw letter templates and set up your patient portal.


In OptiMantra, please open Settings > Communications

The below video provides an overview of the different communication methods.


Patient Portal and Kiosk

Kiosk

The patient kiosk can be used to provide patients with access to a mini version of the patient portal at the clinic on an additional device that you might have. The Kiosk can be accessed by opening the scheduling page > more > Kiosk.



The settings for the Kiosk pull from the patient portal. So, if you configure the patient portal you are configuring both the portal and the kiosk.


Patient Portal

To access the Patient Portal in OptiMantra, please open Settings >  Communications > Patient Portal and Kiosk.


You can begin configuring the page by adding your clinic's logo.


You can then begin to configure the information that is required of all patients booking an appointment. This includes their demographics, clinic profile and new supplements and medication lists.


You can choose which of these details that you would like your patients to see on the portal by checking the box and unchecking the box if you wish to hide it on their profile.


Under patient access you can choose which treatment plans can be accessed by the patient, if they are to have access to Superbills and forms.




The next section of the patient portal enables you to customize the portal by appointment. 


For example for an initial appointment you can choose to have the initial intake form populate by checking the box or you could choose to the follow-up appointment intake form. You can also choose to have a custom questionnaire populate based on the appointment type.



In the next sections of the portal - Questionnaire Specific to Appointment Service and Consent Forms Specific to Appointment Service you can configure a questionnaire or a consent form to specific to an appointment type. 




Reminder Emails

Here, you have two ways to set up reminder emails for the practice:


1. Set up one default reminder email

  • This is helpful if you want one reminder email per practitioner, or if you are a solo practitioner


2. Alternatively, you can use Email Templates as reminder emails if you want to provide multiple types of reminder emails. 

  • To learn more about customizing your email templates and text messages, please refer to the Email Template section of this article.


If you want to keep it simple and have one default reminder - read through the below

  • Select the practitioner for whom you are setting up the reminder email
  • Check the 'send reminder emails to patients' box - if this is unchecked, email reminders will not be going out
  • Pick how many days in advance you send the email reminder
  • Add your reply-to email address (the one you want patients to respond to if they have questions on the email) and your email subject
  • Edit the body of the email in our email editor
  • Use OptiMantra keywords to easily customize the message you are sending out to patients 
    • Scroll down to the bottom of the page for OptiMantra keywords
    • Make sure you spell each word correctly  or the keyword won't work
  • You then have the option of using the same reminder for initial and follow-up emails (to begin, we recommend using the same email for both but you can always choose to create and use  a different email template under the email templates option).



Test it out! 

Once you've finalized your reminders, create an appointment with yourself as a test patient to test it out 

  • Remember that since reminders are sent out in advance and at a standard time, you need to make some adjustments
  • So, if you're testing today you need to set up your appointment for a couple of days in the future, depending on how you configured reminders


Reminder Text

Here, include reminder texts for patients

  • Check the box to send out a reminder text and decide how many days in advance you would like to send it
    • Automated texts are sent at 10AM Eastern for Eastern, Central and Mountain time and 10AM PST for Pacific time
  • Keep the message short - under 160 characters - to ensure patients are only getting one text message
    • If the message is more than 160 characters, multiple text messages will be sent to accommodate the whole message
  • Use OptiMantra keywords to easily customize the message you are sending out to patients 
    • Scroll down to the bottom of the page for OptiMantra keywords
    • Make sure you spell each word correctly  or the keyword won't work




You can also add same-day text reminders sent 2 hours before the appointment 

  • Same day reminders are an add-on cost, so please send our OptiMantra team a ticket if you'd like to include this in your subscription
  • To set up same day message, just check the second box and the same message will automatically send


Test it out! 

Once you've finalized your reminders, create an appointment with yourself as a test patient to test it out 

  • Remember that since reminders are sent out in advance and at a standard time, you need to make some adjustments
  • So, if you're testing today you need to set up your appointment for a couple of days in the future, depending on how you configured reminders


Email Templates

Email Templates can be used to create and customize emails to send out to clients. The emails can range from reminder emails, treatment plans or even an email Birthday emails for your clients. 


You can also configure email templates to request to have them submit consent forms, complete questionnaires, log in to the patient portals, and more. In order to this, you must first create consent forms and questionnaire(s); that you will be including in your email templates to send out to clients.


To access email settings in OptiMantra, please open Settings >  Communications > Email Templates.



Here, create your patient email templates. 


Click on Add Email Template; you can also browse our Template Library for ideas or examples of templates to start from.



You can import our existing email templates or create as many templates as you'd like to accommodate different situations. 


If you're just beginning, we recommend that you look at the Appointment Reminder email as your first template

  • You will use this to set up reminder emails in the next section
  • You can always come back and add more emails in the future


For each template (whether new or from the Library):

  • First name your template with a recognizable name (like New Patient Welcome email) 
  • From this summary view at the top you can also access Keywords (placeholders; more on that below) and see the custom questionnaire and consent form links to embed them in your email 


Start with basic set up: add a From-Name, Subject and Reply-to fields for your email template. You can, also, set up the Message, Footer, Preview, and Practitioners


In the message section, you can embed placeholders/keywords using the keywords drop-down to customize your messages for recipients:

  • For example, to show patient's first name or nickname, pick placeholder FIRST_NAME_OR_NICK_NAME





In messages, you can also embed links to consent form or questionnaire(s)

  • Click on the button
  • Copy-paste the placeholder/keyword into the message body



For a more detailed overview of email and text templates, please watch the video at the beginning of this article.


Text (SMS) Templates

Text (SMS) messages are your general office messages.


You can utilize this feature to send patients notifications when their lab results have been received, for instance or a booking confirmation. 


One-way texting is included in your standard OptiMantra subscription.


Birthday Reminders


You can opt to send patients an email on their Birthday. 


To do so, first configure a Birthday email under Email Templates.


Under Birthday Reminders, check the box Send Birthday Emails to Patients and choose the configured email from the dropdown menu.



Go to the next onboarding step: Charting and Clinical Forms

(or, Return To Setup Steps)



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