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Appointment Management
Use Helix to manage appointments for your health service and the patients' flow through your clinic.
Patient's appointments
SMS Appointment Reminders
Helix can automatically send appointment reminders to patients via SMS.
Configure the Patient's Record for SMS Messaging
Configure the patient's record so Helix can send SMS appointment reminders to them.

Appointment Management
Use Helix to manage appointments for your health service and the patients' flow through your clinic.
- Patient Queue
  The Patient Queue is a list of patients currently attending the practice.
- Appointment Book Views
- Patient's appointments
  - Create an Appointment for an Existing Patient
    This procedure is for patients who are already in your database.
  - Create an Appointment for a New Patient
    This procedure is for patients who are not already in your database.
  - Create an Appointment for a Provisional Patient
    If you don't have enough information about a patient to record all the minimum demographic information, but they still need to be attended to, create a provisional patient.
  - Create a Blocked or Unavailable Appointment
    Block out time in a practitioner's Appointments book to make that time unavailable for appointments.
  - Reschedule an Appointment Time or Date
    Quickly reschedule the time or date of an appointment by dragging it to a new appointment slot.
  - Change an Appointment Duration
    Quickly change the duration of an appointment in the Appointments book.
  - SMS Appointment Reminders
    Helix can automatically send appointment reminders to patients via SMS.
    - Enable SMS Appointment Reminders
      Configure your centre to automatically send SMS appointment reminders to patients.
    - Configure the Patient's Record for SMS Messaging
      Configure the patient's record so Helix can send SMS appointment reminders to them.
    - View Patient Replies to SMS Appointment Reminders
      View patient replies to SMS appointment reminders.
    - Manage Patient Replies to SMS Appointment Reminders
      View the patient's replies to an SMS notification in their appointment schedule.
    - SMS Sender Name
      When you send an SMS message to a patient, you can indicate that it came from your practice using your own sender name to help your patients easily identify messages sent from your practice.
    - SMS Functionality in Each Scenario
      Explains how SMS functions in different scenarios, such as when a practitioner books an appointment, a patient replies to an SMS reminder and so on.
    - Enable SMS for Rescheduled Appointments
      Configure your centre so that you can manually send SMS reminders for rescheduled appointments to patients.
- Printing Today's Appointment List
  Print the appointment list for each day from the Appointment screen.
- Appointment Book Settings

Configure the Patient's Record for SMS Messaging

Configure the patient's record so Helix can send SMS appointment reminders to them.

Procedure

From the Patient Search or Patient Queue, select a patient.
To edit:
- From a healthcare professional's account, in the Consult panel's header, select either the patient's name, date of birth, contact details or email.
- From a non-clinical user's account, in the Visit panel's header, click Edit.
Check that a mobile phone number is recorded for the patient.
To open Patient Preferences, click Preferences.
For SMS Preferences, set Opt In.
Click Save.