Why this is separate from your clinic's defaults
Your clinic has its own defaults for reminders and other messages, but any one patient might need something different — they may prefer a text over an email, or ask not to receive marketing messages at all. These preferences live on the patient's own record and override the clinic-wide default for that patient only.
Find their communication preferences
Open the patient's details and choose Edit. Their communication preferences sit in their own section, separate from contact information.
Choose how they get appointment reminders
Set Appointment reminders to None, SMS, Email, or SMS & Email. This decides which channel this patient's reminders go out on, regardless of what any appointment type or clinic-wide setting would normally send.
Switch confirmations and cancellations on or off
Appointment confirmation emails and Cancellation emails can each be switched on or off individually for this patient — useful for a patient who's asked not to receive one or the other, without changing anything for the rest of your patients.
Marketing messages
Set Marketing messages to Opted in or Opted out. A patient who's opted out won't be included in any broadcast you send to a group, even if they'd otherwise match the audience you're sending to.
Setting the default for new patients
Every new patient starts out on your clinic's default reminder type, set in your general settings. Changing that default only affects patients added afterwards — it won't touch anyone already in your patient list unless you specifically choose to overwrite everyone's existing reminder setting with the new default when you save it.