For use with NexHealth Communications and Scheduling
Family Messaging combines reminder messages so the head of household or guarantor receives a single reminder when multiple family members have appointments on the same day.
Family messaging is supported for the following health record systems: Athena, Cloud9, Dentrix, Dolphin, eCW, Open Dental, Orthotrac, Eaglesoft, Curve, Dentrix Ascend, Denticon, PracticeWorks, Dentrix Enterprise, and ModMed.
Enable family messaging
When family messaging is enabled, Reminders for multiple family members scheduled on the same day are condensed into a single message. The recipient is the guarantor, head of household, or responsible party in your practice's health record system. If that person does not have valid contact information, the Reminder will not be sent.
This feature is especially beneficial for practices that serve many pediatric patients.
To enable family messaging, contact our Support team. Family messaging can be set up institution-wide or by location, and the messaging age limit can be adjusted.
Consolidated family messaging features
With family messaging on, patients who share the same phone number have their messages combined into a single unified "Family" thread.
Messages are visible across all linked profiles.
Manual and automated messages are logged under the unified thread while maintaining individual patient associations.
The messages page displays consolidated family records as "{Last Name} Family."
You can navigate between linked patient profiles within the messaging interface.
Unsubscribing applies to all patients sharing the same phone number. When one patient unsubscribes, the entire phone number is unsubscribed to comply with TCPA regulations. If the number is resubscribed, all linked profiles are re-opted in collectively.
Turn on family messaging for Reminders by location
Once family messaging by location has been enabled by our team, you can turn it on at the location level yourself.
You need Setup-level permissions (managed from Settings → Roles and permissions) to access the Settings menu in Templates.
1. Go to Templates → Settings.
Go to Templates → Settings to turn on family messaging for Reminders.
2. Toggle on Use Family Messaging for Reminders.
The Settings menu and the Use Family Messaging for Reminders option only appear if family messaging has been enabled by our team.
Example with NexHealth Reminders
When the head of household responds to confirm, NexHealth confirms all appointments listed.
If the response confirms one patient but declines another, you must manually change the confirmation status for the affected patient in your practice management system and contact the head of household to reschedule. NexHealth cannot process more than one type of response — it will confirm all Y or all N.