Pre-Appointment Instructions WhatsApp Templates
Pre-appointment instructions tell a patient what to do before they arrive — fast for eight hours, bring these documents, get here fifteen minutes early, take this medicine or skip it. They are the difference between a completed appointment and a wasted one, because a patient who ate breakfast before a fasting test has to be sent home. WhatsApp is the right place for them: the patient can reread the message in the auto instead of half-remembering what reception said on the phone.
Meta billing category
Templates on this page are typically approved as Utility, billed at ~₹0.115 per message (India).
Transactional — tied to an order, account, or appointment the customer already has. Cheapest category. Adding promotional lines risks Meta reclassifying it as Marketing at ~7.5x the cost.
Copy-ready templates
Replace the {{placeholders}} with your platform’s variables before submitting to Meta for approval.
1. Fasting test preparation
Hello {{patient_name}}, your test at {{clinic_name}} is on {{appointment_date}} at {{appointment_time}}. Please do not eat or drink anything except water for {{fasting_hours}} hours before it. Water is not only allowed, it helps. If you take regular medication, ask {{doctor_name}} before skipping any dose — call {{clinic_phone}}. Eaten by mistake? Tell us and we will move the slot. No charge.
Best for: The evening before a fasting test. The no-charge reschedule line is what makes patients admit they ate, instead of quietly showing up anyway.
2. What to bring
Hello {{patient_name}}, for your appointment with {{doctor_name}} on {{appointment_date}}, please bring: {{documents_needed}} 📍 {{clinic_name}}, {{clinic_address}} Please arrive by {{arrival_time}}. Missing something? Come anyway and call {{clinic_phone}} — we will work around it.
Best for: The day before. "Come anyway" matters: patients cancel over a missing document far more often than clinics realise.
3. Procedure or scan preparation
Hello {{patient_name}}, your appointment at {{clinic_name}} is on {{appointment_date}} at {{appointment_time}}. Before you come: {{prep_instructions}} Please arrive by {{arrival_time}} and bring someone with you if you can. Anything you are unsure about, call {{clinic_phone}} — it is better to ask than to guess.
Best for: Two days before a scan or day procedure, so there is still time to get the preparation right.
4. Arrival, parking, and where to go
Hello {{patient_name}}, see you tomorrow at {{clinic_name}}. 🩺 🕒 Arrive by {{arrival_time}} (appointment at {{appointment_time}}) 📍 {{clinic_address}} 🎫 Token: {{token_number}} Go straight to the registration desk with your token — no need to queue at reception. Lost on the way? Call {{clinic_phone}}.
Best for: The evening before, for large hospitals where finding the right desk is genuinely the hardest part of the visit.
5. Online consultation — how to join
Hello {{patient_name}}, your online consultation with {{doctor_name}} is on {{appointment_date}} at {{appointment_time}}. Join here at the appointed time: {{consult_link}} Before you join: find a quiet spot, keep your previous reports handy, and test that your camera works. If the link will not open, call {{clinic_phone}} and we will switch to a phone consultation.
Best for: One hour before a teleconsultation. The phone-consultation fallback rescues the appointments that connectivity would otherwise lose.
What each variable means
These 13 placeholders appear in the templates above. Map each one to the matching field in your WhatsApp platform before you submit for approval.
| Variable | What to put in it |
|---|---|
{{patient_name}} | The patient. For a minor, message the parent, not the child. |
{{clinic_name}} | Your clinic, hospital, or lab name. |
{{appointment_date}} | Date of the appointment. |
{{appointment_time}} | Time of the appointment. |
{{fasting_hours}} | How many hours the patient must fast. Water is always allowed. |
{{doctor_name}} | The treating doctor. Never include the reason for the visit. |
{{clinic_phone}} | Phone number for anything urgent. Chat is not monitored round the clock. |
{{documents_needed}} | What to bring — ID, insurance card, previous reports. |
{{clinic_address}} | Your clinic, hospital, or lab address, as a patient would need it to find you. |
{{arrival_time}} | When the patient should actually arrive — usually earlier than the appointment time. |
{{prep_instructions}} | Preparation steps before a scan or procedure. Phrase as what to do, never as what you are looking for. |
{{token_number}} | Queue or token number for the visit. |
{{consult_link}} | Join link for an online consultation. |
Frequently asked questions
Is a pre-appointment instruction Utility or Marketing?
Utility. It concerns an appointment the patient has already booked, so Meta approves it at roughly ₹0.115 per message in India against about ₹0.8631 for a Marketing template — a difference of around 7.5x. These messages also pay for themselves several times over: one prevented fasting-test failure saves an entire wasted slot and a second visit for the patient.
How far in advance should preparation instructions be sent?
Send them twice. Once when the appointment is booked, so the patient can plan around the fast or arrange for someone to accompany them, and once the evening before, when it actually matters. The second message is the one that works — instructions received two weeks ago have been comprehensively forgotten by the night before.
Can I put the name of the procedure in the message?
Keep it as general as you can. "Your scan" or "your test" carries all the information the patient needs, while the specific procedure name can reveal a great deal about why they are being investigated. Put the detailed preparation in {{prep_instructions}} phrased around what to do rather than what is being looked for, and let the doctor discuss the rest in person.
Related template sets
- Doctor Appointment Reminder WhatsApp TemplatesA doctor appointment reminder is a message that tells a patient when and where their consultation is, who they are seeing, and how to confirm or reschedule it — without ever mentioning why they are coming in. WhatsApp beats an SMS or a reception call here because the patient can reschedule with a single tap instead of ringing a busy front desk, and because the message stays in the thread where they will look for it. Send one three days out, one the evening before, and one on the morning of the appointment.
- New Patient Welcome WhatsApp TemplatesA new patient welcome message is the first thing a clinic sends after a patient registers: who you are, where you are, when you are open, how to book, and — most importantly — what this WhatsApp number is and is not for. Sent well, it prevents a year of confusion, because a patient who knows the chat is not an emergency line will not use it as one. Send it within minutes of registration, while the clinic is still fresh in their mind.
- Lab Report Ready WhatsApp TemplatesA lab report ready message tells a patient their diagnostic report is available and gives them a secure link to open it — and it never, under any circumstances, contains the result. This is the one template in healthcare where getting it wrong causes real harm: a result in the message body appears in a lock-screen preview, which means a family member can learn a diagnosis before the patient does. WhatsApp is still the right channel, precisely because a secure link works far better here than an email attachment nobody opens.
- Post-Visit Follow-Up WhatsApp TemplatesA post-visit follow-up is a message sent after a consultation to check that the patient is doing alright, to remind them of a review appointment, and to collect feedback — all without discussing their condition in the thread. WhatsApp is the natural channel because the patient can reply in a sentence, at their own pace, in a way they never would to an automated feedback call. Send the check-in a day or two after the visit, and the review reminder as the review date approaches.
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