Appointment Reminders
Automatic WhatsApp reminders sent to patients before their visit
Docistra can remind every booked patient on WhatsApp before their appointment, with the doctor's name, the clinic, the date and the time.
Turn reminders on
Open Settings → Clinic
Open the Patient Reminders section.
Switch on Remind patients before their visit
Only owners and admins can change this.
Choose how many hours before
Any value from 1 to 168 hours (7 days). It starts at 3 hours. The page confirms, for example, "Reminder arrives 3h before each appointment".
Click Save
The setting applies to all your doctors and branches.
How it works
- When an appointment is booked (by the AI, your team or your public page), Docistra schedules its reminder for the time you chose.
- The reminder goes out at that time from your clinic's WhatsApp number: the appointment branch's number, or your main number if the branch has none.
- If the appointment is booked closer than your setting (for example 1 hour before with a 3-hour setting), the reminder goes out right away.
The timing is fixed when the appointment is booked. Changing the number of hours applies to appointments booked after the change. Switching reminders off stops all reminders that haven't gone out yet.
What the patient receives
Which message Docistra sends depends on WhatsApp's 24-hour rule:
| Patient's last message to that number | Reminder sent as |
|---|---|
| Within the last 23 hours | A normal message: the doctor, clinic, day and time, a request to arrive 15 minutes early, and "reply with any message if you need to change the time" |
| Longer ago, or never | The approved visit reminder template with the same details, asking the patient to confirm, with quick-reply buttons to confirm or say they can't come |
When the patient replies, the AI picks up the conversation, so it can confirm, reschedule or cancel for them.
When no reminder is sent
- The appointment was cancelled, completed or marked no-show
- The appointment time has already passed
- The patient has no valid phone number (for example, website widget visitors)
- Reminders are switched off for your clinic
- Your clinic has no connected WhatsApp number (see WhatsApp Settings)
Follow-up reminders
When the doctor sets a follow-up date on a visit (for example with Come back in when closing the visit) and the patient hasn't booked it, Docistra sends one WhatsApp message reminding them and offering to book. The patient replies in the chat and the AI books the visit.
Turn it on in Settings → Clinic, under Patient Reminders: switch on Remind patients of their follow-up and set Days before the follow-up (from 1 to 30). It's on by default, 2 days before.
- The message goes out at 10 AM that many days before the follow-up date. If the follow-up is set closer than that, it goes out within the hour. Messages are only sent between 9 AM and 9 PM.
- It mentions the follow-up date and the doctor.
- Moving the follow-up date moves the reminder. It's never sent twice.
No follow-up reminder is sent when:
- The patient already has a later visit, booked or done
- The follow-up was cleared or moved past
- The patient didn't agree to data use
- Your clinic has no WhatsApp number of its own
- The follow-up was set while the switch was off
If the patient hasn't written to your number in the last 23 hours, WhatsApp requires an approved follow-up reminder template. Until it's approved, only patients who wrote recently get the reminder.