Reminder rules you control
Add as many reminders as you need. Each goes out a set number of minutes, hours or days before the visit, by email, text or both.
Reminders & Alerts
Appointment reminders, patient notifications and team alerts
Ona sends patients appointment reminders, confirmation requests and intake reminders by email and text, on the schedule you set and in your own words. Booking, reschedule and cancellation notices go out automatically, each service can follow the practice or customize, and your team gets a bell for missed calls, mentions, lab results and more, muted per person.
- Email and SMS reminders
- Confirmation requests
- Editable message templates
- Team bell with personal mutes
Ona's appointment reminders and notifications send patients the right email or text at the right time and tell your team what needs attention. Visit reminders, confirmation requests, intake reminders, and booking and reschedule notices all run from Settings → Notifications inside Ona, the AI-native practice management platform. Every one of them goes out in your own words.
It's for practices that want fewer no-shows and less phone tag without a separate reminder tool. Owners and admins set it up once for the whole practice, and each service can follow it or go its own way. Everyone on the team decides which alerts reach their bell.
01 · Why it matters
A forgotten visit is an empty slot.
Reminders only work when they go out on time, on the channel the patient reads, in words that sound like your practice.
No-shows rarely come from patients who don't care. Usually the reminder never came, came by email to someone who only reads texts, or arrived too late to reschedule. The intake forms go the same way: sent at booking and forgotten by the day of the visit.
Your team has the opposite problem. Alerts come from every tool, so people learn to ignore them. Ona sends patients a few well-timed messages, and lets each person on your team choose which alerts reach them.
02 · What you get
Reminders patients act on, alerts your team reads.
Confirmation requests
Patients confirm with one tap or by replying Y, or tell you they can't attend. Confirmed visits show on the calendar, and Stop after confirmation skips any reminders still to come.
Intake that arrives on time
Send consents, forms and interviews when the visit is booked or a set time before it. An Intake reminder resends whatever is still unfinished, with fresh links.
Your words in every message
Edit the subject and body of each email and the text of each SMS. Insert variables like the patient's name and visit time, and preview before you save. You can reset to Ona's default at any time.
Per service, per patient
A service can follow the practice, set its own intake timing and reminders, or switch automatic visit messages off. Patients choose email or text in their portal. Texts need the patient's SMS consent.
A bell for your team
Missed calls, mentions, new visits, signed consents, lab results, refill requests and claim denials reach each person's bell, linked to the work. Everyone mutes what they don't need.
03 · How it works
Set it up once, then it runs on every visit.
Turn on visit reminders
In Settings → Notifications, an owner or admin turns on Visit reminders and adds rules. For each rule, choose when it sends, what kind it is (Reminder, Confirmation request or Intake reminder) and which channels it uses.Set intake timing
Choose whether consents, forms and interviews go out when the visit is booked or a set number of hours or days before it. Each type has its own timing.Make the words yours
Open Message templates to edit each email and text, using the variables listed for it. Turn individual notifications on or off for email and for SMS.Patients get them and respond
Reminders go out on the channels each patient allows. Confirming is one tap or a Y reply. If a patient can't attend, the clinician gets an alert to follow up.Your team sees what matters
Team alerts land in the bell, linked to the visit, task, conversation or result. Each person chooses which bell notifications they get.
“I turned off what I didn't want to hear about and kept what I did. Nothing clever — and finally my inbox feels honest.”
04 · In practice
Reminders shaped to how you run visits.
High-volume clinics
Fewer empty slots.
Send a confirmation request two days out and a text reminder two hours before. Patients who confirm stop getting reminders. Those who can't attend tell the clinician in time to fill the slot.
Intake-heavy specialties
Paperwork done before the visit.
Hold forms until three days before the visit. An intake reminder the day before then resends anything unfinished, with a fresh link.
Practices with mixed services
A different plan for each kind of visit.
A quick follow-up can skip the confirmation request while a long first consult gets its own intake timing. Each service follows the practice or customizes.
Clinicians
Only the alerts you need.
Keep missed calls, mentions and lab results in your bell and mute the visit changes you don't need. Nobody else's settings change.
FAQ
Common questions.
How do appointment reminders work in Ona?
An owner or admin turns on Visit reminders in Settings → Notifications and adds rules. Each rule sends a set time before the visit, in minutes, hours or days, by email, text or both. A rule is a Reminder, a Confirmation request or an Intake reminder. Patients who haven't picked their own channels get the practice defaults, which start as email on and SMS off.
Can patients confirm their appointment by text?
Yes. A confirmation request links to a page where the patient confirms or says they can't attend. They can also reply Y or CONFIRM to the text. Confirmed visits show on your calendar, and the clinician gets an alert when a patient can't attend. With Stop after confirmation on, a confirmed patient gets no further reminders, though intake reminders still go out.
Can I customize the reminder text?
Yes. In Message templates, owners and admins edit the subject and body of each email and the text of each SMS. Each notification lists the variables it supports, such as the patient's first name, visit date and time, clinician and location. The preview uses sample data and estimates SMS segments, including the opt-out line added to every patient text.
Do I need patient consent to send text reminders?
Yes. Texts only go to patients with SMS consent and a phone number on file, and patients give or withdraw consent in their portal settings. Every patient text ends with “Reply STOP to opt out,” and STOP, START and HELP are handled automatically. Texting also needs your practice number, which you set up in Settings → Omnichannel.
Can different services have different reminders?
Yes. In a service's Visit notifications card, you can switch automatic visit messages off for that service, or customize its intake timing and reminders. Messages your team sends by hand still go out.
What alerts does my team get?
Each person has a bell that shows unread notifications as they happen: tasks, new or moved visits, mentions, missed calls and voicemails, signed consents and completed forms, lab results, e-prescribing updates, claim denials and new leads. Everyone chooses which of these reach their bell. Owners and admins can also turn on team emails or texts, for example about unread messages or patient reschedules.
Do automatic messages show in the patient's conversation?
Yes. Visit bookings, reminders, reschedules and cancellations that Ona sends appear in the patient's Omnichannel conversation. They're marked Automatic, with delivery status and the exact message the patient received.
Does Ona send push notifications or post to Slack?
Not today. Team alerts arrive in the in-app bell and, where the practice turns them on, by email or text. There are no quiet hours and no Slack or Microsoft Teams routing.
Ready when you are
Fewer no-shows, without the phone tag.
Book a fifteen-minute walkthrough and we'll show your reminders, templates and team alerts in the real app.