SMS for Healthcare

Providing healthcare comes with many challenges. Every day is different, and situations can change very quickly from minute-to-minute.

Treating your patients is only one side of the equation, but you must also manage your healthcare workers, appointments, and budget.

Your operations must be a well-oiled machine to ensure that your patients get the best possible care and for your team to stay healthy and safe. Text messaging can streamline your everyday tasks so that your staff can focus on what’s most important.

Who does this benefit?

SMS can benefit a wide variety of healthcare and medical practitioners. For example:

• Acupuncturists,
• Chiropractors,
• Dermatologists,
• Dentists,
• Doctors,
• Naturopaths,
• Massage Therapists,
• Physiotherapists,
• Surgeons, and more

How can SMS help?

SMS Alerts and Notifications

Sometimes, SMS only needs to be one-way. You can send SMS emergency and safety alerts for:

• The beginning of the flu season
• Outbreaks
• Water contamination
• Travel warnings and bans

To help improve customer experience, send wait time notifications to your walk-in patients. You can also send text notifications to let your patients know about medical results that may help ease their stress and anxiety.

SMS Donations

For global pandemics or public health emergencies, you can send text messages to ask your community to donate. Donations don’t need to be monetary—you can ask for equipment like face masks to help protect frontline healthcare staff from deadly diseases.

Note: We have SMS Donation Templates to help inspire your next campaign

SMS Reminders and Scheduling

Missed appointments cost billions of dollars worldwide each year. One of the easiest ways to help prevent no-shows is by sending SMS reminders to your patients/clients days and hours in advance.

Many people want and look forward to reminders to help prepare for their weeks and will cancel if needed.

Note: Check out our SMS Templates for Reminders and Appointments

If clients cancel on their appointments, you can send text messages to others to fill in empty spots. Use an SMS keyword or a link to your online calendar to book.

For independent clinics, automate messages to remind them about their quarterly or annual check-ups. Gentle reminders will go a long way in improving customer experience and retention.

Last but not least, you can remind patients to renew or get their prescriptions. You can do all of this with SMS automation, so you don’t have to worry about spending time sending each reminder.

SMS Marketing

When you open a new location or change your hours of operation, let your patients know with an SMS marketing campaign.

Send seasonal discounts and promotions, and notify your clients when new professionals join the team and of any new services that you offer.

SMS Broadcasts for Team Management

Without the proper number of staff, things can get hectic very quickly. You can create group SMS broadcasts for your internal team and to help find coverage for shifts.

SMS broadcasts are also an excellent way for your team to communicate information quickly with each other. Most SMS recipients open their messages within three minutes.

SMS Security and Identification

It’s always necessary to verify the identity of those that log in to access a restricted portal or your calendar. Use SMS two-factor authentication (2FA) to send them a temporary code to verify their login.

Customer Service and Feedback

Not all questions require a doctor’s visit. A quick and easy way to answer questions is through 2 Way SMS. Clients can ask questions via SMS, and you can reply to it through the same channel.

Depending on your level of service, you can use it to answer medical questions or mundane questions like your hours of operation.

You can also get a gauge of how well your clinic is performing with an SMS survey. For example, you can do a Net Promoter Score® survey.