Troubleshooting common questions regarding Short Notice List issues.

A Patient Replied to their SMS, But Nothing Happened in EXACT

⚠️Note: Patients must reply to Short Notice SMS messages on the same day to receive a response (confirmation, gap gone or have any movement over the original appointment). You can check this Check the sent and received date of both SMS messages to confirm if this is the issue in your instance.

There Are No Puzzle Icons in Appointment Book gaps?

If there are gaps in your appointment book, but no fill gap icons (puzzle pieces).

⚠️Note: EXACT is configured to not offer gaps within a period (two hours) of the current time, because it is unlikely that patients will be available at such short notice.

When you open the Appointment Book, it is by default at the current time, so there are no patient gaps available for another two hours, and hence you cannot access any tooltip suggestions.

You can check this by progressing forward two hours to see if any fill-gap icons appear.

💡Tip: If you want to offer gaps within two hours of the current time; you can still manually contact patients from the Short Notice List.

A Patient Appointment Is Not in the Short Notice list

If a patient's appointment should be in present in the Short Notice List but is not, there are four common reasons:

• The patient has already been contacted for another gap.
• The patient has already been contacted X amount of times in 3 days, therefore the patient is on pause for Short Notice List messages.
• The patient is an FTA, who was auto-added and has now been auto-removed.
• This appointment gap is also an imminent booked appointment.

The patient has already been contacted for another gap

The patient has already been contacted for a Gap, and has been removed from the Short Notice List for the day. This is a deliberate strategy to:

• Prevent patients being flooded with SMS notices.

• Avoid the scenario of trying to match a single incoming SMS confirmation after multiple outgoing SMS notices.

💡Tip: Confirm this by checking if the patient has been contacted by looking at the Email - Outbox / Sent tabs or the Patient File - Contacts tab.

The patient has already been contacted X amount of times in 3 days, therefore the patient is on pause for Short Notice List messages.

This is a configurable field, to prevent patients being flooded with SMS notices.

💡Tip: Open the Short Notice List tab on your appointment book, click the spanner, adjust the settings, if required.

The patient is an FTA, who was auto-added and has now been auto-removed

EXACT can be configured to automatically add Failed To Arrive (FTA) appointments to the Short Notice List

It is also configured to remove these appointments within a period if the patient does not respond to gap notifications.

💡Tip: Open the Short Notice List tab on your appointment book, click the spanner, adjust the settings, if required.

This appointment gap is also an imminent booked appointment.

In EXACT you can book an appointment and also add it to the Short Notice List. In other words, if you cannot find a gap for the patient in the period before the booking, the patient reverts to the booked appointment.

However, once the booked appointment becomes imminent, there is no point trying to find a gap, so the appointment is removed from the Short Notice List. This is a configurable period.

💡Tip: Open the Short Notice List tab on your appointment book, click the spanner, adjust the settings, if required.