Finding the Reason an Appointment Reminder Didn't Send

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Already Confirmed

With the exception of the same-day text reminder, YAPI's default settings stop reminders a once patient confirms their appointment.  YAPI still keeps a record of every message that was meant to send, though.  If you see Already Confirmed in the Result column, this means that when the reminder was queued up to send, the patient's appointment had already been confirmed in your practice management software.  This is how your settings were configured to work, so there's nothing to worry about!  Your patient will get one more reminder on the day of their appointment regardless of whether they've confirmed.

Invalid or Missing Destination

This status means that the patient has a missing email address or mobile number or there's a typo in one of them preventing the reminder from going out.  For example, these email reminders didn't send because one patient didn't have an email on file and the other had "N/A" listed where the email should be:

If you see this happening with a patient, all you need to do is update the patient's contact information in your practice management software and YAPI will send them their next scheduled reminder.

On Opt-Out List

This status indicates the patient is on an Opt-Out List within YAPI.  Patients can end up on one of YAPI's Opt-Out Lists by a staff member changing their communication settings or adding them directly to an Opt-Out List; they can also put themselves on an Opt-Out List by replying STOP to a text they received from you or clicking Unsubscribe in an email.  Regardless, this usually means the patient doesn't want to receive that type of communication from you.  If you're sure your patient wants to receive reminders by email or text and they ended up on an Opt-Out List by accident, you can remove them by following steps in the "Opting Patients Back In" sections of our articles Opting Patients Out of Automated Email Communication and Opting Patients Out of Automated Text Communication.

Rejected Due to Invalid or Malformed Destination or Communication Error

Usually this status means there was an issue receiving the reminder on the patient's end and it often indicates a problem with the patient's email or phone service.  For example, if Gmail was down when YAPI was sending reminders, the reminder couldn't get to its destination.  This is pretty uncommon, but it's usually isolated to a short period of time and the next scheduled reminder sends out as intended.  If you see this happening with multiple patients more than once, though, we recommend reaching out to our Customer Support team.

Mobile Carrier Settings

While we've done our best to make sure reminders send out consistently, mobile carriers sometimes change their procedures and security protocols without notice, keeping reminders from coming through.  The most common issue we see is that carriers like T-Mobile and Sprint changed their users' security settings to not allow short code numbers through, which is how YAPI sends text messages.  If your patient's number is hosted by either of those carriers and they aren't receiving reminders, we recommend they contact their carrier to allow their phone to receive contact from short code numbers.

Email Filtering

Patients sometimes have security and filtering on their email as well and oftentimes they don't even realize it.  If you've checked that a patient's email reminder was sent by YAPI but they didn't receive it, make sure the patient checks their Junk and Trash folders and sets your email as a trusted contact.

The Original Appointment Was Moved

When an appointment is created in Dentrix, Open Dental, or Eaglesoft, YAPI assigns it a unique number so the system can track it.  That way, YAPI can make sure it it sends the right reminders at the right time and doesn't accidentally send the same one twice.  If an appointment is moved, though, YAPI doesn't reset this cadence; instead, it may think that the patient got all their reminders already and won't send new reminders for the new appointment.  Long story short, if a patient has to reschedule, we always recommend deleting the original appointment and creating new one at the new date and time.