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Slide show:
Minimizing Patient No-Shows

 

This is an interesting article.

Most of our clients have told us that DNA's were significantly reduced when they began sending SMS text message reminders to patients. A lot of missed appointments happened because patients simply forgot and a small reminder was enough to prompt them to attend.

Using a visual text was preferred to an automated voice call. It is short and inexpensive to send, especially compared to the revenue lost on a missed appointment. Emails are another option, but there is no guarantee they will be read in time.


If you wanted to go down the appointment confirmation route, as suggested in the article, you could simply mention that in the text message.

An example could be, "You have an appointment on Thursday 14th April at 11.30am with the podiatrist. Please call to confirm that you will attend"


You can usually have up to 160 characters in a SMS text message. The example above contains 123 characters with spaces, which means you can easily include the practice telephone number.

Helen Jobling
Tynedale Computers PPMS Podiatry

 

My DNAs reduced by about 50% when I started sending text messages. I use Google Calendar to manage my appointments and there is an Android app I use called Calengoo on my mobile which has an automatic SMS reminder facility in it; works really well.