WELL automation allows you to create workflow rules, manage translations, and check for multiple message conflicts among many other things. This feature is useful to create automatic appointment reminders, appointment confirmation, and more so the staff does not have to reach out to patients individually.

These automations can be created at either the Practice level (specific to a physician practice or group of departments/resources/providers) or at the Enterprise level (used as the default settings across multiple practices throughout the organization). Please note that automations configured at an Enterprise level will not allow selections or filters on From and To.

The majority of this article will focus on automations created at the Practice level; read here to learn more about automations at the Enterprise level. 

Once you are comfortable creating automations, you are ready to manage automations.

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Navigating to Automations

Automations are available for an Enterprise or a Practice. Both options are available under their respective settings. 

 

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Creating Automations

Type

You can determine what type of Automation (Appointment, Procedure, or Recall) and add a short description. Currently Appointment automations make up the largest volume of automations WELL customers use.

 

Send From

Select from which resource the automation should be sent.  Resource types are:

• Provider
• Location
• Device
• General

Make sure the resource(s) are connected with a Phone Line. If you create a Default Automation at the Enterprise level, you don't have the option to determine which resource it will come from since resources are specific to individual Practices. 

 

Send To

With most automations, you will want to determine who will receive the automation. You can narrow down who can receive each automation by:

• Event
• Resource
• Appointment Status
• System Status
• Portal Status

Since there are many filters to choose from, it is best to review the top statement to understand which filters are best for you.

For the the below example configuration, this automation will be sent to “All Patients scheduled for an Appointment of type FOLLOW UP with Dr. Alex Limpert.”

If you create a Default Automation, you don't have the option to filter by Event, Resource, etc. since those are Practice-specific.

Exclusions

When building automation, there are cases when it applies to all but a few resources or event types. Now you can choose to exclude those specifics instead of building automation to deal with each unique exclusion.

When building an automation and selecting "Who would you like to send this to?"

1. Select the Resource or Event that you would like to exclude.
2. The description will say All patients schedules for an Appointment "of type" [Event] "with" [Resource].
3. Click the blue "of type" and it will become "NOT of type"
4. Click the blue "with" and it will become "NOT with"
5. These will now be excluded.

Message Content

Messages can be customized by delivery method.  We recommend keeping text content short to optimize the patient experience; emails may be longer and require a subject line, and voice calls can have a special message. You can choose to send reminders via only a single delivery method, or you can configure reminders to be sent via all three delivery methods.

If you select multiple delivery methods for your reminder, the patient will NOT receive all three. WELL will follow the below hierarchy to attempt to communicate to the patient.

1. WELL-BOT attempts to send the patient a text message.
2. If the patient does not accept text messages or has a landline, WELL will attempt a phone call.
3. If the customer does not receive phone calls, WELL can send via email.

The delivery method is dictated by the patient's preferences listed in the electronic medical record. Any of these delivery methods can include one of the available Smart Phrases. 

Text

You can customize your text message content as needed. It is a best practice to include at least one Smart Phrase pertaining to the patient, like {clientFirstName}; this will help ensure the phone carrier does not recognize the text as spam. If a carrier sees this message as spam, it could eventually block your line from sending this message and future messages to the patient.

While creating your text message content, you can view the amount of characters that are in the message in real time. A running character count in the top right corner of the message box ensures you know when you've gone over your character limit for one message.

All messages are sent in 160 character blocks; if you go over that limit it will be sent over SMS as multiple messages. It is a best practice to keep messages 160 characters or below in order to make the message readable and user-friendly for patients.

 

Call

Before creating a message that is sent via phone, it is best to validate how the message will sound and test the reminder. To do so:

1. Click the phone icon under your message. When you hover over it, it should say “Preview Phone Call.”
2. Enter a valid phone number where you would like to listen to the message.

Avoid using abbreviations in your call verbiage since the call may not recognize and pronounce the abbreviation appropriately. For example, the abbreviation "appt" should be replaced with the full word "appointment." 

Multilingual Support

When entering Automation Message content you can automatically translate messages for 18 different languages. To do so:

1. Write your message in your preferred language.
2. Click Add Translation.
3. Select which language you would like the system to translate the message into.
4. Have a proficient speaker of that language verify the translation to make sure it is correct.

Read more about language preferences here. You can always delete it as well by clicking the red X next to the language it is in.

 

Attach Media

You can include rich media along with automated messages to your patients. Attach campus maps, PDF files with instructions, and more. We highly suggest that any attached media is under 500KB in size.

 

Attach Form

If you would like to send a form along with the automation, you can select which form should be sent at the Practice level. To better understand forms, read the following article.

 

Timing

You have a number of options for how to set up your automation. To create an automation:

1. Select what Event Type you’d like (e.g. Appointment Time) from the drop down menu.
2. Determine the specific time before or after that event when you would like to send the message.
3. Toggle Send only on Business Days? if you would only like to send messages of this type during practice hours. If your practice is open during weekends and this is selected, automations will still go out on those weekend days.

There are a few things to note while creating automations:

Business Hours Affect When Reminders are Delivered

If you restrict an automation to send only during business hours and the message ordinarily sends 1+ days before an appointment, appointments that fall directly after the weekend will receive their reminders during your last business day. For example, if your Practice is closed on Saturday and Sunday, reminders for Monday appointments will send the Friday before the appointment rather than on Sunday.

Patient Status or System Status Change Ignores Business Hours

If you set the automation to occur upon Patient Status Change or System Status Change, the automation will go out regardless of business hours. Instead, the timing of the message depends on when your electronic medical record or practice management system sends status updates to WELL.

Some management systems are integrated to send information real time, while other management systems update everyday at midnight. Before setting an automation to Patient Status Change, it is always best to check with your internal IT department about when your system sends updates to WELL.

 

Consider TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) Guidelines

You now have the ability to choose to send or suppress messages based on TCPA guidelines. There are three options you may choose when setting up scheduled automations:

• Normal (current state): Any automation scheduled to send outside of TCPA hours will be moved to either 9:00 PM the night prior to the event or 8:00 AM the following morning.
• Send scheduled automations outside of TCPA hours: Any automation scheduled to send outside of TCPA hours will send at the time they are scheduled.
• For example, if automation is scheduled to send “1-hour before appointment," and there is an 8:00 AM appointment, then automation scheduled to send at 7:00 AM will still be delivered at 7:00 AM.
• Suppress scheduled automations outside of TCPA hours: Any automation scheduled to send outside of TCPA hours will not send at all. 
  • For example, if automation is scheduled to send “1-hour before appointment," and there is an 8:00 AM appointment, then the reminder will not be sent at all.

To modify your TCPA message settings, select the toggle button for the desired option.

 

Merging Messages

You can limit how many messages a patient receives if they have multiple appointments in the same day that would result in duplicate messages. For example, if an automation sends reminders for all appointments with one specific doctor and a patient has two appointments with that doctor (e.g. a consultation and a biopsy), you can use this setting to ensure the patient only receives one message.

Note: You cannot merge multiple distinct automations.  For instance, if one automation is set up to send a reminder for Dr. Jacobson and a second automation sends reminders for a separate Provider (Dr. Smith) at a separate Location, the patient would still receive two messages -- one for Dr. Jacobson and open for Dr. Smith.

To configure this setting:

1. Choose to Merge messages for Same Day.
2. Select Next.
3. Enter the message you will send for merge messages using Smart Phrases.

 

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Creating Automations From Template

You can create automations and then use them as a template for additional automations you would like to create. To do this:

1. Go to the Action Menu of the automatio you would like to copy by clicking the three dots on the far right.
2. Select Use as Template.
3. Edit the appropriate sections.