SMS Marketing in Healthcare

Second only to retail, healthcare is an industry that’s positioned perfectly to benefit from SMS marketing campaigns. The channel lends itself well to appointment reminders, medication refill alerts, and notification of lab results.

Send bulk SMS messages to patient populations about new services, healthcare resources or other practice updates as well as to solicit feedback, questions, and suggestions for improvement. Text messages can also help you better communicate with your staff about practice changes, maintenance updates, or schedule notifications.

Taking Appointments via SMS

Healthcare practices that are seeking new patients can launch a multimedia marketing strategy that includes advertisements, signage and mail campaigns. By inviting prospective new patients to opt into receiving SMS marketing in healthcare text messages, you can build a subscriber list and encourage wellness appointments or participation in other practice services.

Making, changing, managing, and cancelling appointments can take up a significant amount of time for healthcare staff. Although the majority of doctor’s offices still schedule new, follow-up or regular appointments by phone or in person, some also offer online scheduling. By taking appointments via SMS as well, healthcare providers can better streamline the entire process.

Once a new or current patient opts in to receive SMS marketing in healthcare texts, you can follow up with a shortened link to an appointment scheduling page. As long as your SMS software is integrated into your front office scheduling system, you should have real-time appointment information at your fingertips.

Text Appointment Alerts and Reminders

Everyone is busy these days and often rely on their phones to keep their days running smoothly. By using text appointment alerts and reminders, you can reduce the number of no-shows as well as lighten the load of your front office staff. Automated text appointment alerts and reminders are an excellent application of SMS marketing in healthcare that can increase the efficiency of your office operations.

Consider adding a shortened link with your reminder text messages that allow patients to reschedule appointments on the spot. This additional step saves your patients time and effort and provides you with up-to-the-minute schedule changes, which may allow you to schedule last-minute requests or urgent appointments more effectively.

In addition, using texts for reminders can be an excellent way to alert patients of medication refills, follow-up appointment requests, or to complete requested medical lab work. The gentle prodding of regular text messages can help patients remember to take better control of their health.

Providing Health Information to Patients Through SMS

By providing health information to patients through SMS, you can better keep your clients engaged with your practice. For example, many patients require follow-up labs after an appointment. Once those labs are completed, you can text them to share that results are available through a secure portal.

In addition, an SMS marketing in healthcare program can be the perfect venue for sharing practice information such as extended hours during flu season or introducing a new provider. As your practice adds new services such as health education classes, therapy pets, or naturopathy, health text messages can help spread the word quickly.

SMS messages can also be used to share regular health tips or seasonal information such as allergy treatments. These short notifications can not only provide helpful information but will also serve to keep your practice top of mind in case patients do remember that they need a health related service.

Receiving Feedback from Patients Through SMS

Every quality organization wants to solicit feedback, reviews, and input from their customers. Healthcare is no different. By receiving feedback from patients through SMS, healthcare organizations can nurture long-term relationships more effectively.

Although everyone appreciates positive feedback, suggestions for improvements and even complaints are an important part of SMS marketing in healthcare programs. If a provider learns that a patient was dissatisfied, steps can be taken to resolve the problem, correct the issue or make restitution.

An SMS channel can also be an effective way to connect with patients one-on-one. Although private health information cannot be shared via text messages, SMS can be an excellent way to request appointment or other administrative information or obtain details about practice services.

Notifying Staff Via SMS

Besides using SMS marketing in healthcare campaigns to communicate with patients, healthcare organizations can take advantage of the channel to send messages to staff as well. Use the channel to send meeting reminders or schedule changes as well as emergency notifications and maintenance updates.

Some healthcare organizations use text messages to communicate administrative details before appointments, which helps keep office workflows moving efficiently.

SMS text messages can be an easy way to add to a positive, caring culture with personal birthday messages or virtual kudo texts as well.

By using SMS marketing in healthcare, providers can build closer relationships with patients by providing appointment reminders, medication alerts, lab results, and practice news on a regular basis. The channel is also an excellent way to keep staff abreast of any internal announcements or changes in an efficient and effective manner. It’s easy to use, readily available to even rural patients who may lack broadband access, and convenient.

Whether you’re interested in sending clinic, pharmacy or hospital SMS messages, check out DialMyCalls as an SMS text messaging provider. We offer a free trial at no charge so you can easily get started with a healthcare SMS marketing campaign today.