Hello Jane Community,
With the recent spread of COVID-19, we have been hearing from some of you wondering about the best ways to communicate with your patients. As care givers you’re often working with a large segment of the community, including many of those considered in at-risk populations.
We’ve put together a list of tips and recommendations for the best places in Jane to add custom language and messaging for your patients, and added some examples of messaging that you’re welcome to use in your practice.
Important Note: You will need to be logged in under a “Full Access”
staff profile to access the Settings and Reports included in this guide.
Messaging to Cancel Appointment if Feeling Sick
As this only affects the portion of your client base with booked appointments, we do not necessarily recommend sending a mass email to all patients (although information on how to do so is found below). Instead, there are a number of areas in Jane where language can be customized to request that patients cancel their appointment if they are sick.
If you head over to Settings > Language there are a number of items you can customize here.
We recommend adding language to the:
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Notice/Message on Online Booking Pages
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Reminder Email: Details
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Thanks for Booking Email: Details
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SMS Appointment Reminder
You will be given an area to enter the new text and then a preview of how it looks.
You can also add in some fancy formatting - check out the cheat sheet just below the text boxes (click & expand “View formatting instructions”) to learn the code.
Here’s a quick example of the Online Booking Notice/Message
And here’s an example of the Reminder Email: Details
and another quick example of the SMS Reminder
Pro Tip: To see a preview of your SMS Reminder, head over to Settings > Reminders and Notifications > and click View Preview to the right-hand side of the reminder type.
Need a hand with language? We’ve got you covered!
We recommend trying to avoid language that might cause panic. You’re welcome to use the language below, some variation of it, or your own language, entirely:
For the Notice / Message in Online Booking site:
Due to the current risk of COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus, we encourage all patients who are sick, or experiencing symptoms such as fever, trouble breathing, coughing to call to reschedule your appointment at 1-555-555-5555. During this time we will be waiving our customary fees for late cancellations and rescheduling.
Thanks for Booking or Reminder Emails:
Due to risk of COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus, we encourage all patients who are sick, or experiencing symptoms such as fever, trouble breathing, coughing to call to reschedule your appointment at 555-555-5555. During this time we will be waiving our customary fees for late cancellations and rescheduling.
Remember to stay hydrated, take your vitamins, wash your hands— and avoiding touching your face.
SMS Appointment Reminder (130 character limit)
Your appointment is in %{relative_time}. Visit our site for extra COVID-19 info. %{url}
Cancellation Fees
If you are interested in waiving the late cancellation fees for patients who are sick and need to cancel, you’re able to add an additional cancellation reason with a Full Access account by heading to Settings > Fees.
Here’s our Guide doc on Customizing your Fees for more information on that.
Export Full Patient List
If you do want to send out a message to your entire patient list you can do so from your email service or with an external service like Mailchimp. You’ll want to pull out your full patient list using the “Patient List” Report.
Please note: a reminder that as the patient list includes patient contact info and can therefore only be accessed by those with “Full Access” profiles.
Once you’ve pulled the report to Excel or .csv, you can import the email addresses in order to send a company-wide message.
See more details about Sending an Email to All Patients
Setting a Task
Because these notices and extra language will not be relevant in perpetuity, it might also be a good idea to set a task as a reminder to review whether you still need all these notifications. A way to remind yourself within your Jane account to change it all back when it is appropriate to do so. Which we hope will be very very soon!
Here is our guide document on Tasks or To Do’s
Other resources
Canada - Canada.ca - Outbreak Response
Australia- Health.gov.au
New Zealand - health.govt.nz
United Kingdom - gov.uk
We hope this information is helpful. If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out. If you have questions about COVID-19 directly— you will want to direct those to your local health authority.
Remember to wash your hands and avoid touching your face!
Take care,
The Jane Team