Text messages go to patients alongside your emails: booking confirmations, reminders and cancellations. Everything is set up in Settings → Text messages. Owners and managers can change these settings.
Which plans include texts
- Clinic: 150 texts a month included, then 5p each.
- Practice: 300 texts a month included, then 5p each.
- Solo: no included texts. Every text is 5p, pay-as-you-go.
- Free: texts aren't sent. Emails still go out as normal.
Pay-as-you-go texts are added up each month and billed a month later on your usage invoice. See your plan, usage and bills.
Turn texts on
- Go to Settings → Text messages.
- Click Turn on text messages at the top of the page.
- Check the summary and click Turn on.
To stop all texts later, switch off Send text messages at the top of the same page. Emails carry on as normal.
Choose which texts go out
Under Which messages to send, switch each one on or off:
- Booking confirmation (on to start with)
- 24-hour reminder (on to start with)
- 1-hour reminder (off to start with; sending both reminders doubles the number of texts)
- Cancellation (on to start with)
You can set these before texts are on. They apply once you turn texts on. Waitlist offers also go by text when the patient has a mobile number.
How patients recognise you
Every text comes from Atlacare, for every clinic. Your clinic's name is always in the message itself. Under Clinic name in the message, set the name as you'd like patients to see it. Keep it short: a long name can split one message into two texts. The Preview shows how a text reads.
Texts only carry the patient's first name, the date and time, your clinic name and a link to manage the appointment. Never treatment or clinical details.
Numbers outside the UK
Only send texts to UK numbers is on to start with. Patients with a non-UK mobile then get their appointment messages by email only. Numbers in Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man count as UK.
Turn it off to text EU mobile numbers as well. A text to an EU number uses 2 credits (10p) instead of 1 (5p). Numbers outside the UK and EU are never texted; those patients always get email.
Set a monthly limit
Under Monthly limit, Stop sending after sets how many credits can be used in a month. When the limit is reached, texts pause until the 1st and emails still go out.
If you leave it blank, the limit is your included texts plus 500 pay-as-you-go credits (at most £25 of pay-as-you-go a month). Type a higher number if you send more.
We email you when you reach 80% of your limit, and when your pay-as-you-go texts pass £5 and £20 in a month.
See what you've used
The This month panel at the top of Settings → Text messages shows your included texts used and what's been sent beyond them. The same figures are in Settings → Billing & plan, under Usage.
If a particular patient didn't get a text, see why a message didn't send.