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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. You can read more about Domain Management here. |
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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 team 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.
There is also a button to open the patient in the Engage ability. We'll cover the functionality in the Engage Portal later in the article.
We have also implemented a Database Utility to update these checkboxes for all the patients in your database.
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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, we recommend that you configure your Schedule's Appointment Display to reflect when an appointment is confirmed in the Engage Portal.
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However, the Appointment's Reminder Status in MacPractice will toggle to Confirmed when a patient confirms an appointment reminder from the Engage Portal. The Reminder Status will also toggle in MacPractice if you use the "Confirm in PMS" function in the Appointment Confirmation Inbox. We'll go into further detail on the Appointment Confirmation Inbox later in the article.
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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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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  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. Information entered into these fields can be pulled into messages. For example, the Practice SMS Name will always be pulled into your messages.
Click Save and Continue to move on. The next screen allows you to customize your email header. |
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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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 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. The Birthday Notification image cannot be changed from the Express Wizard. There are a few templates available that you can review later with additional options. Once you're satisfied, continue on by clicking the Save and Continue button to take you to the Confirmations window. |
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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.
Once you're satisfied with the options set, continue on to 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. 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. |
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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.
When satisfied, click Save & Continue to move onto Recalls. |
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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 you’re happy with the changes, they can click Save & Continue to move to the 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. There is also a check box to “Send out today’s reminders now”. This box is checked by default and will immediately send out any reminders that should go out today based on the options you've selected in the Express Wizard. In most cases, this checkbox should not be checked until AFTER the Portal URL is entered into MacPractice, and you've also had a chance to fully review all the options available. 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. |
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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.
You can also respond to received SMS messages by clicking the Reply button. You can click the blue link of their name to open up the whole conversation if needed.
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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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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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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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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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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:
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 Page is split into three sections:
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.
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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.
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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 the 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.
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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.
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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. 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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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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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.
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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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This is a great place to get an overview of how your reminders are set up and to identify any potential issues with that scheme. You can also click a particular notification type to bring up that particular notification and customize them, which is covered in Configuring Reminders.
Let's break each tab down further down further:
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Automated Messaging
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The first tab in the Settings Page is Automated Messaging. This is where the office can see the timeline of their automated messaging. This provides information about what is being sent when and which communication method is used via the icons on each reminder.
Clicking on the Color and Icon Key link will display a legend for the information being displayed.
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Automated Recall
The Automated Recall tab shows the same timeline like Automated Messaging but applicable to recalls. Just as you can with Automated Messaging, the office can click on the recall reminder to make any adjustments they’d like without navigating to it in the settings sidebar!
Family Messaging
Engage has the ability to send messages for family members! Setting the ability to send to guarantors and multiple appointments for family members can be found in Advanced Settings in the sidebar.
Specific templates can be set for family messaging in Family Message Settings in the sidebar. This current view displays the timeline for those notifications. The same color and icon key can be found as a legend to what the colors and icons mean! Clickin on the notification will allow the office to make changes to what is being sent and when without navigating to that message settings to make adjustments.
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The Settings Sidebar is where you'll go when you want to adjust the configuration of how MP Engage is working.
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General Settings
Office Settings: Office Settings is where the office can add/update their settings that are specific to the office. This includes the ability to customize the email images!
Email Widgets, Reviews, and Surveys: Email Widgets, Reviews & Surveys allow offices to add links to their email messages for social media, referral links, reputation management links and map links to find the office. Unfortunately,http://Grade.Usus cannot be integrated in MP Engage's widgets.
Refresh PMS Data: The "Refresh Practice Management Software Data" option allows the user to update the Engage Portal with the latest information from MacPractice This data is normally refreshed quite consistently, but if you notice something hasn't loaded, this option will refresh data manually. Remember that data is normally refreshed at 4 PM Central Standard Time every day.
When you click this link, a status message will appear indicating how many records were updated!
Change Password: The Change Password option will allow you to change their Engage Portal password. The old password is required to change passwords to a new one.
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Message Settings
Birthdays: In the Engage Portal, offices will have the capability to send birthday emails and/or texts! They will be able to customize the email/text messages and select a template to start with! They can choose what time they would like to send these at!
Early Reminders: Early Early Reminders are typically reminders set well in advance of the Patient’s Appointment. This is just reminding them about an upcoming appointment with no call to action. If responded to, they will not confirm an appointment like a Confirmation would.
Early Reminders can be either Email, SMS or Voice. Many offices prefer Email and/or SMS. These can be enabled or disabled per the office’s preference. Offices can set how early in advance to send the message, specify the time at which to send the message and apply this to all/set providers and all/set appointment types.Same Day Reminders: Same Day Reminders are sent the day of the appointment to remind the patient that their appointment is today! They will not confirm an appointment if responded to. This reminder can be enabled or disabled per the office’s preference as well as the communication method for these - email and/or SMS.
The office can customize how far before the appointment but also specify that they would like to not send these reminders before a specific time. It is important to note that if an office would like to send a reminder 1 hour before an appointment, their “Not Before” time matters. In the screenshot you will see that they have an hour before appointment but have the “Not Before” time set to 7:30 AM. This means that appointments at 8 or 815 AM will not receive a same day reminder. It can also be applicable to all/set providers and/or all/set appointment types.Confirmations: Offices will be able to customize their frequency for sending confirmation reminders. This email does have a call to action: to confirm their appointment.
Pre/Post Appt Msg: Engage Engage has the capability of sending messages before or after a patient’s appointment. Many times, offices want to send a welcome letter to a new patient before their appointment, or send something like a review request following their appointment. They can also set up Pre and Post Op messages with the many templates available! These can be sent via email or text in a set time before or after the appointment and at a certain time in the day!
Day Of Appt Msg: Similar to Pre and Post Appointment messages, Day of Appointment messages are sent before or after the appointment except these messages are sent within hours of the appointment (before or after) and not before a certain time of the day.
Continuing Care: Engage offers the ability to inform a patient if they are due for a periodic exam of some sort. This is a reminder for recalls/followups that might not have an appointment scheduled. These messages have a call to action which requests that the patient calls to get their appointment scheduled and is based off their last appointment date.
Recall: Recalls are similar to Continuing Care (above) and can even have the same templates set - the difference is that the call to action to get their appointment scheduled is based off their recall date.
Email & SMS Templates: The office can create their own email and SMS templates or duplicate existing ones to modify. The office will use a basic text editor to create the template and can use “template keywords” as pull fields in the subject and body (or message for SMS). Once they are happy with the message to send, they can send to a test email or phone number to ensure they like the message before they use it!
Voice Templates: Voice Voice templates are similar to email and SMS but they can craft a voice message to send to patients if they choose! The office will enter the voice message that they would like sent out and can use “template keywords” to act as pull fields for those messages. Once this is set, they can test a number to call to ensure the message is what they want!
Delayed Messaging Status: The Delayed Messaging Status area contains all messages that have been marked as "Send Later" when drafting messages in the Communications Center. You can select a day to pull up to see what messages are slated to be sent that day. You can change the time or cancel these delayed messages.
Stop Messages: Stop Messages allow an office to stop all confirmations and reminder messages for appointments on a specific day. They can choose the day(s) and select for the whole office or by provider.
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Early Reminders
Same Day Reminders
Confirmations
Email & SMS Templates
Voice Templates
Advanced Settings
Advanced Settings will allow an office to adjust settings to fit their needs. They can also manually send messages if needed from within this area.
Popup Settings: Popup Settings apply to the popups received for notifications. Having these enabled and visible will take away the worry about seeing important messages from their patients! They can adjust these settings to whatever is most convenient for them from the position of the popup, focus and visibility.
Voice Settings: Voice Settings allows offices to change the days where an office doesn’t want voice messages to go out to patients. Most common will be setting their weekend days to call patients on a weekday.
Patient Status: Patient Status is a report for the office where they can see validity in the contact methods entered in MacPractice. This screen will display active patient count, patients with valid emails and patients with valid cell. Below the overview, it will display a list of any patients that have some type of data error. This list will contain the patient ID, last name and first name for easy identification in MacPractice. They can also see the reason for the data error and the information entered in the corresponding field.
Patient Tags: Offices can set up tags to add to their patients in the Engage Portal. This will allow offices to easily filter in the Patients and Appointments tabs by a tag they create. These can be set per patient on the patient page.
Send Messages Manually: Offices have the option to send messages manually at any given time. In this area they can choose SMS and/or email and which notifications they would like to send out.
Advanced Settings: Advanced Settings is where an office can make adjustments to how data is handled. In here they can:
Select date format
Enable/Disable incoming appointment confirmations to be written back to MacPractice
How to handle if cell numbers are saved in the home number field
How to handle if home numbers are saved in the cell number field
Enable/Disable using guarantor contact information when sending notifications
Enable/Disable sending 1 message for the first of multiple appointments in one day
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History Tab
The History Tab contains a breakdown of all communications sent and received through the Engage Portal. You can use the filter fields and buttons to identify how many confirmations, reminders, and other communications have gone out during that time period. This is mostly useful to ensure that reminders are being sent out as expected.
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Support Button
The Support Button will display the contact phone number and email address for the MacPractice Support Team, should you need assistance. Don't hesitate to reach out if you're having issues!
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So now that we've gone through each of the features within the MP Engage portal, let's talk specifics about how to adjust reminders and notifications. You'll find these under the Message Settings on the Settings Sidebar, located in the Settings Page.
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You can also use the Edit Template link, also in the upper right hand corner, to edit the message that will be sent with this Reminder. IF YOU MAKE CHANGES, we strongly recommend duplicating the template prior to making those changes! You can scroll down and read more about templates in the appropriate sectioncreating and editing templates here.
Using
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Tags
You'll also note the Include Patient Tags and Exclude Patient Tags. Tags are very powerful in that you can target specific notifications to go to certain subsets of your patient base. One of the most common uses of tags is if you serve Spanish-speaking patients.
In that example, you would first add a Patient Tag type in Settings Page > Advanced Settings > Patient Tags. Once that tag is added to the MP Engage Portal, you can then turn on that Tag on a Patient via the Patients Page. With your Patients properly tagged, you can then utilize these in reminders.
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Then, you could add a new Notification intended for Spanish speaking patients. (We'd recommend giving it a suitable name so you can identify these at a glance) With this new notification, we could then use the "Include Patient Tags" field to include that newly created Spanish Tag. This will ensure that this reminder ONLY goes to Patients with the Spanish Tag.
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While you can easily custom create every communication that is sent out, templates save a tremendous amount of time for frequently used responses and communications. You can access your templates in Email & SMS Templates, located in the Settings Page sidebar.
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We strongly recommend duplicating existing templates that you wish to make changes to! This can save you a headache if you accidentally make a change you didn't want to make. You can duplicate a template via the Duplicate button with an existing template selected.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I disable reminders for a deceased patient?
Set a Patient Alert of Deceased in MaacPractice by navigating to the Patients Ability > Patient Tab, selecting the Alert sub-tab, and adding a Deceased alert.
Archive the patient within MacPractice. MacPractice Engage will only send confirmations and reminders to patients that are active in MacPractice.
If the event that you do not wish to archive the patient, you can navigate to the Patients Ability > Patient Tab > Communication Preferences Sub-Tab and set this to “None”.
