Unlock Weave Automation for New Patient Follow-Up

What This Does

If your practice already pays for Weave, it has built-in automation features that most offices never fully set up: automated new patient welcome texts, pre-appointment reminder sequences, and recall follow-up flows. Setting these up once eliminates hours of manual outreach every week.

Before You Start

• Your practice already uses Weave (this is about using features you're already paying for)
• You have login access to your Weave admin account
• Your PMS (Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental) is already connected to Weave
• Time needed: 15–20 minutes to set up each automation
• Cost: Included in your existing Weave subscription

Steps

1. Log into Weave and find Automation settings

Go to your Weave portal (portal.getweave.com) and log in. In the left sidebar, look for Messaging > Automated Messages or Reminders. You'll see a list of automation types you can configure.

What you should see: A list of categories — Appointment Reminders, Recall Reminders, New Patient Welcome, Birthday Messages, etc.

Troubleshooting: If you don't see Automation in your sidebar, your Weave plan may not include it — contact Weave support to confirm what's included in your tier.

2. Set up a New Patient Welcome sequence

Click New Patient Welcome (or similar). You'll see options to send a text and/or email when a new patient is added to your PMS. Set the trigger: "Send X hours after new patient is added." Write a welcome message like: "Hi [name], welcome to [practice name]! We're looking forward to meeting you. Your appointment is [date] at [time]. Reply CONFIRM to confirm or call us at [number] if you need to reschedule."

Weave will auto-fill the patient name, appointment date, and time from your PMS.

What you should see: A preview of how the message will look to the patient, with the placeholders filled in.

3. Configure the pre-appointment reminder sequence

Navigate to Appointment Reminders. Set up a 3-touch sequence:

• 72 hours before: "Hi [name], your appointment at [practice name] is in 3 days on [date] at [time]. Reply CONFIRM to confirm."
• 24 hours before: "Reminder: your appointment is tomorrow at [time]. We look forward to seeing you!"
• 2 hours before: (optional) "See you today at [time]! Our address is [address]."

4. Save and test

After setting up each automation, use the Test button to send yourself a sample message. Confirm the placeholders fill in correctly with real patient names and dates.

Real Example

Scenario: A new patient named Maria books a cleaning for next Tuesday at 2:00pm.

What you set up: New patient welcome sequence triggers immediately when she's added to Dentrix. Weave sends: "Hi Maria, welcome to Lakeview Dental! We're looking forward to meeting you. Your appointment is Tuesday, March 25 at 2:00pm. Reply CONFIRM to confirm or call (312) 555-0100 if you need to reschedule."

What you get: Maria confirms via text within an hour. A reminder goes out Monday and Tuesday morning. No staff time needed.

Tips

• Check your Weave account for review request automations too — these can automatically ask satisfied patients to leave a Google review after their appointment
• Look for the "Missed Call Text Back" feature: when staff miss a call, Weave automatically texts the caller "Sorry we missed you — how can we help?" This alone can recover several new patient contacts per week
• Review your automation performance monthly in the Weave dashboard (open rates, confirmation rates)

Tool interfaces change — if a button has moved, look for similar AI/magic/smart options in the same menu area.