MacPractice Engage is a new solution designed to provide appointment reminders and appointment confirmations to your patients from within the MacPractice software. It provides a powerful, flexible set of tools designed with an office workflow in mind.
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This article will cover how to use MP Engage. MP Engage is a paid feature on your license. If you're interested in MP Engage, you'll need to speak with your Sales Representative.
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Please note that you'll need to be running MacPractice Build 13.11 at minimum to use MacPractice Engage, and you'll need to have a Domain registered on your MacPractice License. |
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What are the features of MacPractice Engage?
Appointment Reminders
Recall Reminders
Confirmation Syncing
Portal that includes:
Patient Lookup
View Patient Appointment Details
Two Way SMS
Family Messaging
Message Timing & Delivery Customization
Email Widgets for Social Media and Reviews
History Reporting
MP Engage does not interact with Online Scheduling features.
Requirements to use MP Engage
Clients must be on an MP build of 13.11+ in order to use MP Engage.
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Once these requirements are met, our Implementations Coordinator will be in touch to complete your MP Engage setup. They will walk you through the remaining setup steps and the Express Wizard.
MP Engage Setup
The following steps will be addressed by your Implementations Coordinator, but we've also highlighted the process here. If you have already been through the Onboarding Process, you can skip to the Exploring the Engage Portal section.
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Let's walk through each of these.
Adding the Portal URL to Preferences
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In MacPractice Preferences > Engage, you'll see a field for the Engage Homepage URL. You can click the lock to unlock this field.
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Once this is done, you can close the Preferences window.
Patient Communications Settings and Opting Patients In
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In the Patient tab in MacPractice, the Communication Subtab contains Opt-In Settings, controlling whether a Patient has opted in to receive Automatic Appointment Reminders and Communications. You'll want to set these according to your patients' wishes.
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Remember that we do advise that an office make a backup of your database prior to using any Database Utility as a precaution to avoid any unintentional changes.
Setting up Reminder Colors in the Schedule
Prior to using MacPractice Engage, it is important to configure your Schedule's Appointment Display to reflect when an appointment is confirmed in the Engage Portal.
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Therefore, we'll want to configure your Appointment Display settings so that one of the appointment areas is set to "Reminder Status". By doing this, a MacPractice user reviewing the schedule will be able to tell when an appointment has been Confirmed in the Engage Portal, and thus you can manually flip that status for that appointment in MacPractice readily.
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Setting up by using the Express Wizard
When a user first accesses the Engage Portal, they'll be presented with the Express Wizard. You'll click the green "Get Started Now" button to begin setting up your Engage Portal. This will configure your Reminders and Confirmations and other details for your practice. Our Implementation Coordinator will walk you through the Express Wizard for your Office in all likelihood, but we'll leave these instructions here that walk you through each step for later reference.
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Once you click the "Get Started Now" button, you'll be taken to Office Settings.
Office Settings
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Here, you'll be able to set the details regarding your practice. The majority of the fields should be pulled from the details you filled out on the Registration Page step, but you can adjust these if necessary in the Settings Tab > General Settings in the left Sidebar > Office Settings. Once you're satisfied, click the "Save and Continue" button at the bottom.
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Click Save and Continue to move on. The next screen allows you to customize your email header.
Header Customization
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Here you can upload a logo to include on your e-mails, or reset the header to remove one. You can also customize any text and color included using the editing tools provided. Once you're satisfied with the formatting of your header, click the "Save and Continue" button on the lower right to move on to Popup Settings.
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You can change the Email header later by navigating to Settings > General Settings > Office Settings. |
Popup Settings
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This section instructs the user to enable Popups on your browser.
You'll want to ensure that your browser is not blocking pop-ups when using the Engage Portal, since these pop-ups will be used as notifications and you won't want to miss messages. This
This page of the Express Wizard will help you identify how to enable pop-ups for your browser when on the Engage Portal.
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Birthday Notifications
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The next page in the wizard assists the office with Birthday messages. Here the office can see a preview of a birthday message and text to be sent to patients on their birthday. The office can turn this option on and off as desired, and also set a time of day when a birthday notification should go out.
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Once you're satisfied, continue on by clicking the Save and Continue button to take you to the Confirmations window.
Confirmations
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Confirmation Notifications allow you to set when a 1st, 2nd, and/or Voice Confirmation are sent to patients. You can use the Send out _blank_ days selector to tweak when a confirmation should be sent out prior to an appointment, or disable a particular confirmation.
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It is important to clarify that when a 2nd confirmation is set to Enabled, that this Confirmation will only be sent if there was no response to the 1st Confirmation request. If the patient responds to the 1st confirmation, the 2nd confirmation will not be sent. Also, If an appointment was created after a first confirmation would ordinarily be sent out (for example, if the 1st confirmation is set to go out in 5 days, and the appointment was made within 4 days), the confirmation will not go out. However, if the 2nd confirmation is set to go out (in the same example, if the 2nd confirmation was set to go out 3 days prior) it will be sent. Voice Confirmations work the same way. |
Once you're satisfied with the options set, continue on to Early Reminders.
Early Reminders
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The next page is where the office can set Early Reminders. Early Reminders give patients a heads up about their upcoming appointment. If responded to, Early Reminders will not confirm an appointment like a Confirmation message would.
This Early Reminders can be enabled/disabled, set a timeframe before an appointment and set the time of day the messages should be sent out.
When you're ready to move on to Same Day Reminders, click Save & Continue.
Same Day Reminders
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The next page is to allow the offices to set messages for Same Day Reminders. This is a simple reminder sent to the patient so they don't forget their appointment the day of. If responded to, Same Day Reminders will not confirm an appointment like a Confirmation message would.
This can be turned on and off as desired, and you can set a timeframe before the appointment and set a time to not send reminders before.
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It is important to note here that if an appointment is scheduled prior to the time a Same Day Notification typically would go out, they will not receive a Same Day Notification. |
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When satisfied, click Save & Continue to move onto Recalls.
Recall Notifications
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The next page is where Recall Notifications can be set. Much like the prior sections, each setting, including voice, can be enabled/disabled depending on the office’s preference.
If all contact details for a given patient are filled out, and all of your Recall Notifications are turned on, a patient could feasibly receive an Email notification, a SMS notification, and a Voice call notification for that one Recall Notification. You may want to consider this and ensure you understand how many reminders are going out.
Once they’re you’re happy with the changes, they can click Save & Continue to move to the final page!
Send Messages / Final Page
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On the final Send Messages page, the office has the chance to review their Automated Messaging and Automated recall timelines. This gives the office a good visual representation of when their messages will go out, and how many.
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Once you are satisfied, click Finish to continue. You will now be taken to the Home Page, where you can begin to explore the Engage Portal.
Exploring the Engage Portal
There are two ways to access your Engage Portal: Via the Engage Ability, or by navigating to the URL provided in your Registration email. The advantage of using the browser over the integrated Ability in MacPractice is that the browser window will issue popup notifications if you receive messages.
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When you first access the Engage Portal after going through the Express Wizard, you'll first be placed on the Home Page.
Home Page
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The Home Page gives an overview of appointments and communication for offices with their patients. At the top of the window, you'll see your navigation buttons allowing you to explore the different areas of the Engage Portal. We'll cover each of these other areas in the following sections. If you ever need to return to the Home Page, you can simply click the Home button.
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The Home Page also contains an Alerts Inbox, the SMS Inbox where incoming messages are displayed, and any Appointment Confirmations received. Clicking on these sections will open up a Popup window with more details regarding that section. Let's cover each of these in turn, starting with the SMS Inbox.
SMS Inbox
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On the Home Page, you'll only be able to see 4 received SMSes, which means you'll need to click on the SMS Inbox to review all received SMS messages. The Inbox will show you the Patient Name, the number they are texting from, the received date of the message, and a short preview of the received message.
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You can also respond to received SMS messages by clicking the Reply button. You can click the blue message link of their name to open up the whole conversation if needed.
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When responding to a text from the SMS Inbox, the Practice SMS Name will automatically be included, as shown in the below image on the right. You can use the SMS template drop down to select from your available SMS Templates. You'll be able to see how many characters you have available to use at the bottom.
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We strongly recommend archiving all messages that have been seen that do not require further action. You can use the checkboxes to on the left side of the SMS Inbox to select which messages to archive, then use the X button in the upper left to archive those checked messages.
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If you need to access archived messages, you can click the "Go To Archives" link at the top. However, you cannot unarchive messages that have been archived. |
Appointment Confirmations
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The Appointment Confirmations Inbox is structured very similarly to the SMS Inbox, with a few additions. You'll note that there is an "In PMS" column with green checkboxes. This indicates whether the Reminder Status option in the MacPractice Schedule is displaying. Keep in mind that the Appointment Status in MacPractice is not updated, just the Reminder Status for the purposes of Reminder colors.
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MP Engage is able to parse confirmation responses and automatically mark an appointment as confirmed if the following is received from that confirmation prompt: Y, Yes, OK, okay, confirm, confirmed, and "si" (Spanish for yes). However, MP Engage does not recognize emojis. If you receive a confirmation response that doesn't fall within this range, such as "I'll be there", you'll need to check the Appointment in the leftmost column, and then use the Pencil Icon in the upper left hand corner. The Pencil Icon is "Confirm in PMS", which marks the appointment as confirmed in the Portal, and will mark the Appointment's Reminder Status as confirmed in MacPractice. |
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Keep in mind that the Appointment Status in MacPractice is not updated, just the Reminder Status for the purposes of Reminder colors. |
Much like the SMS Inbox, we strongly recommend that you archive all appointment confirmation messages once they are resolved. You'll need to check this periodically to ensure that you are handling responses as needed. You can absolutely archive replies to confirmations that indicate they will not be showing to an appointment, although you will need to address this change in MacPractice's schedule.
You can access archived confirmations by clicking the Go To Archives link at the top. However, confirmations cannot be un-archived.
Sidebar
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On the left pane as shown in the above screenshot, you can see today’s appointments, tomorrow's appointments, and stats for the day. Clicking on the corresponding link for today or tomorrow's appointments.
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One thing to note is the link in Tomorrow's Schedule, when clicked, will take you to an Unconfirmed Breakdown of the following day.
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Next, we'll break down the additional pages that you can reach from the navigation buttons at the top of the Portal.
Appointments Page
The Appointments Page at the top of the portal will provide the office with a schedule breakdown. By default, when you first enter the Appointments Tab, it will display today's scheduled reminders and confirmations.
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Right above the Schedule Breakdown, but below the calendar, you'll see buttons to Print and Export the list of appointments in the Schedule Breakdown. The exported breakdown will be an Excel file.
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You'll note that there are contact buttons on the leftmost column for each patient. The buttons will be displayed IF the patient has the appropriate contact method details in their patient record in MacPractice. For example, if an e-mail address is not entered into the patient record, the @ email button in the Contact column will be missing. If a Contact method is greyed out here, that indicates that the patient has opted out of that communication method. We'll go more into patients opting out in the Patients Page. |
Below the filters, you can use the "Send Message to All Patients Below" button to send a message to all patients in that list in the event of a cancellation for a day, specific provider or specific appointment type. Whomever is displayed in the schedule breakdown will be a recipient for this message, so you'll want to ensure that your search criteria is correct before using this feature. When you click this button, you'll be taken to the Communications Center Page where you can complete the message.
Clicking a patient's name will take you directly to the Patient Tab for this patient's information. You can also manually confirm an appointment by moving the mouse over the Unconfirmed status in red, and clicking the Confirm button that pops up. This will update the Appointment Status in MacPractice to Confirmed as well, so there's no need to bounce back and forth between the software and the Engage Portal.
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If a Confirmation is received, the confirmation method will be displayed here as well. You can mouse over a confirmation to verify the method in the tooltip, as shown in the below screenshot.
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It is important to note that MacPractice confirmations and MP Engage confirmations are two separate systems and they do not interact with each other. If you confirm an appointment in MacPractice's schedule, you'll also need to separately confirm that appointment in MP Engage! |
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Patients Page
The Patients Page is where offices can search for and pull up details of a specific patient. You can use the search field or the available filter criteria to pull a corresponding list of patients.
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You can also export this list, or you can click the "Send Message to All Patients Below" to be taken to the Communication Center to craft a custom message to go out to these patients generated in the list.
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Refreshing Patient Data
It's important to note that patient details shown on the left hand side of the Patients Page will update from MacPractice every day at 4 PM Central Standard Time. If a change is made earlier in the day, it may not be reflected immediately until this time. If you have need to update a patient's information immediately, you'll need to use the Refresh Details link above the Patient's name, as shown in the below screenshot. This will update MP Engage's information with anything changed on MP side.
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Patient Tags
On the left side of the Patient Page with a patient selected, you'll see a section called Patient Tags. This is where you can assign particular tags to a patient, such as if they are a Spanish speaker, or any other purpose. To add a tag to a patient, simply toggle the desired tag on or off as needed.
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There is no bulk method for tagging patients. This must be done individually.
Communication Preferences
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Below Patient Tags, you'll see Communication Preferences. This is where you can control whether the patient receives emails, texts, or phone calls. It will also control the types of messages that are allowed for this patient, as shown in the screenshot below:
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If a patient responds to a message or confirmation with "Unsubscribe", "Stop", "Cancel" they will automatically be sent a message confirming they are opting out, and these communication methods will be toggled off.
Communication History, Scheduled Appointments, Previous Appointments
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In the center of the Patients Page with a patient selected, you'll see the Communication History table, which displays all reminders and confirmations sent to the patient. This is a great place to verify that reminders have gone out to this patient appropriately, and the status of said messages.
Scheduled Appointments and Previous Appointments are relatively self-explanatory, and will also help you identify general trends on whether this patient confirms appointments or not.
Communication Center Page
The Communication Center is where offices can go to send custom-created messages to specific patients based on filtered criteria. If you're trying to track communications that have been sent out, you can look at either the individual Patient Page or the History Page.
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This tab is split into three sections:
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At the bottom of each of these tabs will be a set of fields devoted to sending test messages to confirm your crafted message will display as intended. You can set a specific address to send the test to.
Recall Wizard
In the Recall Wizard Tab, you can filter the list of patients by their recall date to customize a message to your patients. This will typically include information for missed recalls or anything they would like to send to them en masse.
The Recall Wizard will search for patients that have a Recall Date that falls within a custom date range. This is separate from MP Engage's automatic recall notifications, and thus should be used sparingly.
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It's also important to note that if the patient does not have a recall date tied in MacPractice, patients will not populate here. Therefore, it is important to still run Recall Reports in MacPractice to ensure you don't miss any patients who should have a Recall Date! |
Once you've selected the patients you wish to send a new Recall notification to, click Continue to be taken to the message editor.
Select Specific Patients Tab
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In the tab to Select Specific Patients, the office can filter their list of patients by Appointment or by Patient Detail. You select either method by clicking the drop down by "Find Patient By" at the top of the Tab.
When the office chooses to find patient by appointment, they can filter the list by date range, appointment type, provider, office (clinic), gender and age. This will diplay a list of patients to generate a message for. Using the checkbox, they can select the patients they prefer to send this communication to. The office can click continue to customize their message, as shown in the screenshot below.
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If the office prefers to search for specific patients by patient detail, they can enter a Last Name, First Name, Email Address, Phone Number or Patient ID to filter the list of patients to choose. Important note: information entered here will search all fields. In the screenshot below, I searched “georges” and it shows everyone with “georges” in the email and name. The office will check the ones they want to add to the list and click Add Checked. They can remove by checking the patient in the right list and clicking Remove Checked. The office can click continue to customize their message, as shown below:
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All Patients
The office can also search all patients by Gender or age and the first letter of their last name. Once they’ve selected their parameters, the office can click continue to customize their message.
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Customizing Messages
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On any of the aforementioned tabs, once you click Continue, you'll be able to customize the message you wish to send to the corresponding patients shown. You can customize an email, SMS or voice message to send to those patients selected in the tab.
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Office can select a template or customize the message they want to send to their list of patients. They can enter a test email address (or phone number) and display name at the bottom to receive the message they are about to send.
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It's important to note that if you select a template then make changes to the template in this view, the changes will not be made to the selected template. Customizations here are solely for this message only. If you'd like to adjust your Templates, you can do so in the Settings Page. |
Once you're satisfied with the message and you've conducted a successful test, you can use the "Send to X Patients" button at the upper right. You can use the "Override Opt Out" checkbox in the case of an emergency closure, but we strongly recommend not using this feature except as a last resort.
Settings Page
The Settings Page is the hub for all of your reminders and confirmation schemes. Many of these are initially configured when you go through the Express Wizard, but the Settings Page is where you can fine-tune MP Engage to meet your practice's reminder needs.
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