Open Dental stays your practice management system and your schedule. This is an add-on that reads your appointments and writes confirmations back through Open Dental's documented API. Not a replacement, and not a migration.
You connect with an API key we issue and you paste into Open Dental. The API is served from your own server by the eConnector, the same service that runs Open Dental's eServices. New and changed appointments come across every 15 minutes, and reminders are built from that synced schedule. Nothing is installed on your workstations.
Each patient gets a text and/or email the day before the visit, Remove every two-hour reminder claim until the time-zone comparison in send2HourReminders is fixed and a real send has been checked. For example, steps[1] title: 'A reminder the day before'. FAQ: 'The day-before text goes out at 9 a.m. your office's local time.' bottomLine: drop ', and by text two hours before'. If a mention is wanted, say instead: 'A same-day reminder is in the works and isn't available yet.'. You turn each reminder on in settings. Text reminders are sent in the patient's stored language, or your practice's default language if none is on file. Email reminders are translated only if you turn on outbound translation; otherwise they go out in English. Sending a reminder does not write anything to Open Dental, so the chart doesn't fill up with automated texts.
A C reply by text, the confirm link in the email, a confirmation on our automated confirmation call, or a staff member pressing Confirm on our schedule all do the same thing. They update the appointment in Open Dental so its Confirmed field shows your office's own confirmed status, which we find from your Appt Confirmed definitions (Setup > Definitions > Appt Confirmed). They also write a note with the time it happened. On the Appointments module the visit shows as confirmed, the same as if someone at the front desk had set it.
The text says 'Reply C to confirm or R to reschedule.' A patient who replies R is asked to call the office, and the email has a Reschedule button that opens an email to your office. We don't change the appointment in Open Dental for a reschedule request, so your team stays in control of the book.
Setup takes about five minutes and needs no migration. We issue an Open Dental API key. In Open Dental you confirm the eConnector is running, enable the API and add the key. Then you click Connect. 'Your first sync pulls the schedule. The first time a patient confirms, we look up your confirmed status in your Appt Confirmed definitions and save it, or you can tell us which one to use.' You turn on the day-before and two-hour reminders, choose text, email or both for the day-before reminder, and set your default language. The server running the eConnector needs to stay on so the schedule keeps syncing. Reminders are part of Reviews & Messaging at $199.99/mo, month-to-month, with a 14-day trial and a BAA on every plan.
Yes. When a patient replies C to the text, taps the confirm link in the email, or confirms on our automated confirmation call, we update that appointment in Open Dental. The Confirmed field gets your office's confirmed status and a note gets the timestamp. A staff member pressing Confirm on our schedule does the same thing. The front desk sees it in the Appointments module without doing anything.
Yours. Open Dental lets each office define its own statuses under Setup > Definitions > Appt Confirmed. We read that list and pick your confirmed entry, then save it for later writes. If you'd rather use a specific one, such as a separate 'Confirmed by text' status, we can set that. If nothing in your list matches, we write only the note and leave the Confirmed field alone.
The day-before reminder goes out in the morning by text, email or both. The two-hour reminder is text only. You turn each one on in settings. They're built from your Open Dental schedule, which syncs every 15 minutes.
Right now the confirmation note replaces what's in the appointment's note field. It isn't added to the end. If your team keeps other information in that field, such as pre-med reminders or 'bring x-rays', a confirmation will overwrite it. Until we change that, keep that kind of note somewhere else in Open Dental, like the patient's chart or Comm Log.
This is a real gap and you should know about it. 'This is a real gap and you should know about it. Many offices cancel in Open Dental by deleting the appointment, and a deleted appointment is simply gone. Either exclude AptStatus 3, 4, 7 and 8 from reminders in code before publishing, or add: 'Appointments you move to Open Dental's Unscheduled List may still get a reminder; break the appointment instead if you want reminders to stop.', but it doesn't yet detect deletions. So a patient whose appointment was deleted in Open Dental can still get a reminder for it. If you break appointments instead of deleting them, reminders stop.' Either exclude AptStatus 3, 4, 7 and 8 from reminders in code before publishing, or add: 'Appointments you move to Open Dental's Unscheduled List may still get a reminder; break the appointment instead if you want reminders to stop.', but it doesn't yet detect deletions. So a patient whose appointment was deleted in Open Dental can still get a reminder for it. If that happens and they confirm, the confirmation has no appointment left to land on.
No. We don't read the Confirmed field back from Open Dental. Our schedule shows confirmations collected through our reminders, our automated confirmation calls and our Confirm button. If your team confirms a patient by phone and sets the status inside Open Dental, Open Dental shows it, but our view won't.
Not from the reminder itself. The text offers 'Reply C to confirm or R to reschedule', and a patient who replies R is asked to call the office. The email has a Reschedule button that opens an email to your office. Rescheduling by phone can be handled by the AI receptionist, which is a separate product.
Yes for text reminders. Each text is translated into the language stored for the patient, or your practice's default language. Email reminders can be translated too if you turn on outbound translation in settings; otherwise they go out in English. Nothing language-related is written to Open Dental.
Only for the messages you want us to send. If both are running, patients get two reminders for the same visit, and Open Dental's eConfirmations can also set the Confirmed status themselves. We suggest switching off the overlapping eReminders and eConfirmations once ours are live, so patients get one message per visit and only one system is setting the Confirmed status. Reminders are included in Reviews & Messaging at $199.99/mo, month-to-month, with a 14-day trial.
If your team still spends mornings calling patients to confirm, this sends Open Dental appointment reminders the day before by text and/or email, and by text two hours before. When patients confirm, the appointment's Confirmed field changes to your own status in Open Dental. Patients who reply R are asked to call you, and nothing changes in Open Dental until your team does it. There are two things to plan around. Our confirmation note currently replaces the appointment note instead of adding to it. And an appointment deleted in Open Dental after it synced can still get a reminder.
Open Dental is a trademark of Open Dental Software, Inc. Intake.Dental is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Open Dental Software, Inc.
You keep Open Dental. Hero: 'We text each patient the day before their appointment, and you can add an email reminder too, using the appointments we sync from your Open Dental schedule.' steps[1]: 'Each patient gets a text the day before the visit, plus an email if you turn the email channel on.' setup: 'You turn on the day-before reminder, decide whether to add email to the text, and set your default language.' FAQ: 'The day-before text goes out at 9 a.m. your office's local time. If you add email, the email goes out each morning.' bottomLine: 'this texts patients the day before, with an optional email.', using the appointments we sync from your Open Dental schedule. When a patient replies C, taps the confirm link in the email, or confirms on our automated confirmation call (an optional setting that calls patients who haven't confirmed by text), we set that appointment's Confirmed field to your office's own confirmed status and add a note. Your team sees it in the Appointments module and doesn't have to re-key anything. Patients who need to reschedule are asked to call you, and nothing changes in Open Dental until your team does it. There are two limits, and we cover them below. One is about appointments deleted in Open Dental after they were synced. The other is about the appointment note field.
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