Appointment Notifications

OutSmart sends two automated messages to patients about their appointments: the Confirmation Message (at the moment of booking) and the Reminder Message (shortly before the appointment). They serve different purposes and use different channels.

Email or SMS — Which Goes When

Message	Channel	Why
Confirmation (at the moment of booking)	Email only	Confirmations carry the substance — your custom message, intake forms to fill in, document attachments, practitioner messages. None of that fits in an SMS.
Reminder (shortly before the appointment)	Email + SMS	Reminders are timely nudges. The SMS is the glanceable “you’re booked tomorrow at 10” ping. The email reminder carries the fuller detail (event name, practitioner, office address, OutSmart Meet link if applicable, and the confirm-attendance button).

This split is intentional. SMS messages cannot carry attached intake forms or custom practitioner content; if a duplicate SMS went out alongside the booking email, patients would risk dismissing the email as redundant — and then miss the forms they need to fill in before the visit. So at booking time, only the email goes; SMS is reserved for the timely reminder window close to the appointment.

Note

This is how OutSmart has always worked — SMS at the reminder stage, never at booking. If a patient asks why they didn’t get a text confirmation when they booked, the answer is “you’ll get a text reminder closer to the date — the booking email contains the forms and information you need now.”

---

Confirmation Message

The confirmation message is sent to a patient immediately after an appointment is booked. Its purpose is to let the patient know their appointment has been successfully scheduled and to deliver any important information they need right away.

• When It’s Sent:
  • Online Bookings: Sent automatically upon booking.
  • Manual Bookings: Sent by clicking the “Save and Send” button when creating the appointment.
• What It Includes: You can configure the message to include a custom note, digital intake forms, and/or document attachments.
• Configuration: The confirmation message can be set up in two ways:
  • Event Type Manager: A specific message can be created for each individual event type. This message will override the global confirmation message.
  • Global Confirmation Message: A general, “catch-all” message that is sent for any event type that does not have a specific message configured.

Reminder Message

The reminder message is intended to remind a patient that their appointment is coming up. You have granular control over when these reminders are sent.

• Configuration: Each event type can have its own reminder message settings, configured in the Event Type Manager.
• Timing: You can choose to send reminders a specific number of hours or days before the appointment occurs.
• Content & Delivery:
  • Email: Can contain a custom message, an OutSmart Meet virtual meeting link, and a note reminding them to complete any assigned intake forms if they are still outstanding.
  • SMS: A quick text message to let them know their appointment is approaching.
• Appointment Confirmation: Both the email and SMS reminders include a link or button that allows the patient to confirm their attendance. When a patient clicks it, the appointment is marked as confirmed in your calendar — and no further reminders go out for that appointment.
• Controlling the confirmation button: Per event type, you can choose to only show the confirmation button on reminders within X days of the appointment (so a far-out reminder still goes out as a heads-up but can’t be confirmed early), or disable the confirmation button entirely (if you rely on manual confirmation by reception). See Appointment Reminders for both settings and when each one fits.

---

Troubleshooting

Why is my client not getting email notifications?

Several reasons can stop an email reaching a patient:

• The patient’s record has no email address, or has an invalid one.
• The event type has no auto-reminder rules configured — without rules, no reminders fire for it.
• The patient unsubscribed from OutSmart emails. Once they unsubscribe, OutSmart cannot send them email until they re-subscribe (anti-spam laws).
• The email went to the patient’s spam folder, or their email provider blocked it as suspected spam.

If you need to investigate a specific incident, contact us at contact.outsmartemr.com.

My patient has stopped receiving any emails from OutSmart, but I can still reach them through other channels

When a patient stops receiving every email from OutSmart (appointment reminders, confirmations, Smart Form assignments, document shares) but you can still reach them by direct email, text message, or phone, the most likely cause is that the patient unsubscribed from OutSmart emails at some point. Once a patient unsubscribes, OutSmart can’t send them anything by email until they’re re-subscribed — anti-spam laws require us to honour the opt-out.

To resolve this, contact us at contact.outsmartemr.com with the patient’s email address. Support can check the unsubscribe status against that email and re-subscribe the patient if they’ve changed their mind. Email delivery resumes on the next scheduled send after that.

Note

The diagnostic clue is that you can reach the patient through other channels but specifically not through OutSmart-sent email. If the patient also isn’t reading personal emails from you, the cause is likely on their side (mailbox full, address changed, etc.) — different fix. If only OutSmart emails are missing, unsubscribe is the first thing to check.

Do confirmation emails go out automatically when I book a patient?

For online bookings — yes, the Confirmation Email is sent automatically when the patient completes the booking.

For manual bookings in the calendar — no, you need to send it yourself. Either click Save & Send in the event editor (which sends as you save), or click on the existing event in the calendar, hover the i info icon, and click the envelope icon to send the confirmation. See Appointment Confirmations for the full flow.

The confirmation email is sent to the patient and CC’d to the practitioner and office so you have a copy of what was sent. If you don’t want those CCs cluttering your inbox, set up a filter in your email client to archive or delete them automatically.

Where do I edit my custom confirmation message?

A confirmation message can be configured in two places:

• Event Type Manager — for a message specific to one event type.
• Global Confirmation Message — for the catch-all default that applies to any event type without its own message. See Global Confirmation Message.

Both areas are accessible from the calendar’s gear icon. OutSmart picks the event-specific message first if one exists, then falls back to the global message, then to a basic system-generated confirmation if neither is configured.