The patient is not getting SMS
The reminder should have gone out and did not. The first four things to check are the number on the record, a send block, the SMS wallet balance, and whether that channel is switched on at all.
Are you seeing these symptoms?
- The patient says they did not get the appointment reminder
- On the patient record the message has the status **Undelivered** or **Failed**
- The status is **Wallet exhausted (fell back to email)**
- The status is **Opt-out (blocked)**
- The SMS arrived truncated, or without Polish characters
Every SMS leaves a trace. Open the patient record and go to the communication tab — the Recent messages section shows the Last 20 SMS sent to this patient with the columns Sent, Type, Status, Segments and Direction. That one screen settles most tickets: either there is no entry at all, or there is one and it says what happened.
How to do it
Check whether an entry was created at all
No entry means Heltio did not even try to send. There are three reasons, and all of them are visible right beside it:
- No phone number on file. Edit the patient profile to add one. — with no number there is nothing to send to.
- A send block: in the communication preferences the Current status field shows Opted out instead of Receiving SMS.
- The channel switched off for that kind of notification — see step 3.
Read the message status
The statuses are literal and each one leads somewhere different:
- Queued and Sending — the message is on its way, wait a moment.
- Sent — the operator accepted the message; Delivered — they confirmed it reached the handset.
- Undelivered and Failed — most often a wrong number or a phone that is switched off.
- Opt-out (blocked) — the patient replied STOP, or there is a block on their record.
- Wallet exhausted (fell back to email) — the SMS wallet is empty and the text went by e-mail.
Check whether the channel is switched on
The notifications screen is a table: a row is a kind of notification, the columns are Email, SMS and Push. The row Reminder — 24 hours before with the SMS column off means no patient will get that reminder by text, whatever their own preferences say.
The Sent column sets the lead time — the ready values are 30 min, 2 h and 24 h, and a custom one has to fall between 0 and 20,160 minutes.
Top up the SMS wallet
The SMS wallet card splits the balance into Included this month and Packages, and shows the Total balance. When the balance is low the warning SMS balance is low appears; at zero it becomes SMS wallet exhausted with the explanation: "All SMS reminders are falling back to email. Top up to resume SMS sends."
Buy more SMS leads to the packages; the payment goes through Przelewy24, and the texts are added to the balance once it is confirmed. To avoid coming back to this every month, turn on Auto top-up and set a threshold.
Check the wording on your own number
Every row of the notification table has Send test SMS. You give a number in the format +48600000000 and receive exactly what the patient will receive. The limit is 5 test sends per clinic per 24h.
When something does not work
No phone number on file. Edit the patient profile to add one.
What this means: The patient record has no number, or the number is in a format the operator will not accept.
This patient has opted out of SMS — only email/push notifications are sent.
What this means: The patient replied STOP to a message, or someone blocked the SMS channel on their record.
SMS wallet exhausted
What this means: The balance has fallen to zero, so reminders go by e-mail instead of by text.
Body too long — server refuses to send more than 6 segments.
What this means: A custom template has passed the length limit, most often after Polish characters were added.
Who has access
Clinic AdminThe channel settings, the wallet and the sender name belong to the clinic owner and administrator: "Only clinic owners and admins can configure messaging settings." A patient's message history and preferences are visible to anyone with access to the record; changing the preferences themselves needs a permission — without it you will see You do not have permission to change communication preferences.
Related
- SMS to the patient — what goes out automatically, and when.
- SMS packages — prices, top-ups and segment accounting.
- Notification preferences — the channel table in full.