Family Messaging combines reminder messages so the Head of Household/Guarantor only receives a single reminder when there are multiple appointments on the same day.
Enable Family messaging
Contact our Support team to enable family messaging.
The messaging age limit can be adjusted.
Family messaging can be set up institution-wide or by location.
When this feature is enabled, Reminders for multiple family members scheduled on the same day are condensed into a single reminder message. The person who receives this message is the "guarantor", "head of household" or "responsible party" of the family in the practice's health record system.
This is especially beneficial if you serve many pediatric patients.
Example in NH messages:
When the Head of Household responds to confirm, NexHealth confirms ALL the appointments listed.
If the response indicates Yes for one patient but says no for others you will need to manually change the confirmation status for the affected patient(s).
For example: if the patient says Y to the auto-confirmation, NexHealth will confirm all the appointments, but if they then go on and say something like, Patient 1 will be there, but I need to reschedule patient 2, you will have to manually change patient 2's confirmation back to N in your practice management system and contact the head of household to reschedule for declining patient. NexHealth cannot confirm more than one type of response (so we will either confirm all Y or all N).
Family messaging by location
Once Family messaging by location has been enabled by our team, navigate to Templates --> Settings to turn on Family Messaging for Reminders.
Users with Setup-level permissions (manage these from Settings --> Roles and permissions) have access to a Settings menu in Templates. From this menu, they can enable Family Messaging for their location.
*Note: The Settings menu and the option to Use Family Messaging for Reminders only appears if it has been enabled by our team.
Consolidated Family messaging
Patients who share the same phone number have their messages consolidated into a single unified ‘Family’ thread.
Messages are visible across all linked profiles, and manual and automated messages are logged under the unified thread while maintaining individual patient associations.
The messages page displays the consolidated family records as "{Last Name} Family," as a clear indicator that multiple patients are part of the same thread. You can also navigate between linked patient profiles within the messaging interface.
Unsubscribing works across all patients sharing the same phone number. When one patient unsubscribes, the entire phone number will be unsubscribed to ensure compliance with TCPA regulations. The resubscribe functionality works similarly. If the phone number is resubscribed, all linked profiles will be re-opted in collectively.
