Marketing consent

SmileLine evaluates promotional messages separately from conversational and essential service messages. Campaigns, nurture-sequence messages and reputation invitations are marketing; appointment reminders and deposit messages are transactional.

Record evidence on the patient

Open a patient and find Marketing in the profile card. SMS, email and WhatsApp each show their own current preference. Owners, managers and coordinators with patient-edit permission can click Record or Update and save:

• Opted in or Opted out;
• the legal basis for an opt-in: Explicit consent or Recorded soft opt-in;
• the evidence source;
• an optional consent-notice version and evidence note.

Every change creates a new evidence event while the patient page shows the current channel state. SmileLine never infers soft opt-in from a patient status, enquiry or purchase.

Set the practice policy

Owners and managers choose Settings → Practice details → Outbound marketing eligibility:

• Explicit consent only allows only a recorded explicit opt-in.
• Explicit consent or recorded soft opt-in also allows a separately recorded soft-opt-in basis.

Changing the policy does not create consent evidence. A soft opt-in recorded while the policy is explicit-only is retained but remains ineligible.

Global channel blocks

Provider-level suppressions take priority over a positive marketing preference. SMS or WhatsApp STOP keywords, email complaints and email bounces create a global block for that channel. Recording an opt-in does not silently clear one of these blocks.

Marketing emails contain a signed unsubscribe link and support one-click unsubscribe. That action opts the patient out of email marketing without stopping essential appointment, treatment or account messages.

Checks at send time

SmileLine checks eligibility during campaign preview, when the recipient list is materialized, and again immediately before provider delivery. Reputation invitations make the same final delivery-time check. If the patient withdraws consent while a message waits in the queue, the message is skipped and any reserved campaign credits are released.