The Benefits of Patient Reminders

What is a patient reminder?

A patient reminder is an automated text, email or phone notification that informs patients of upcoming appointments. Patient reminders also may ask patients to confirm appointments they’ve previously scheduled. These reminders are increasingly popular substitutes for having your front-office staff call patients to confirm their attendance as appointments approach. 

How do automated patient reminders work?

The process begins when your front-office staff adds a patient to your calendar in your practice management system (PMS). For your employees, the process ends there; the PMS handles everything else. Adding a new appointment to your PMS triggers the automatic sending of a patient reminder a preset number of days before the appointment.

Benefits of patient reminders

Here are a few of the many reasons practices of all sizes and specialties have implemented patient reminders:

• They free up resources. When your front-office staff isn’t busy calling customers to confirm appointments, your phone lines are open for incoming calls from patients. That’s important because, across industries, about one-third of patients prefer to schedule appointments via phone, according to a report by GetApp. It also means your front-office staff won’t have to wait for co-workers to finish reminder calls with patients before making calls of their own.
• They increase patient satisfaction and loyalty. Reminder phone calls can be inconvenient for patients, too, since they may be disruptive. [Read related article: Best Medical Office Phone Systems] Patient text reminders circumvent this issue. With texts, your patients aren’t disturbed as they go about their days, and they can respond at their convenience. The result is more satisfied patients who become more loyal to your practice.
• They minimize your no-show rate. As a healthcare provider, you know how busy life can be. In fact, your patients might be just as busy as you are, making them likely to accidentally forget about their appointments. Patient reminders can refresh your patients’ memory at just the right time, thereby increasing the likelihood that they’ll show up.
• They help clear your waitlist. When someone misses an appointment, what does that mean for the patients who could have had that appointment? When you identify appointments that won’t actually happen, you give someone from your waitlist a chance to get scheduled. In the process, your bottom line remains intact, and you make another patient much happier with your practice.
• They reduce strain on front-office staff. A key goal of your front-office staff is to provide a positive experience to patients at your practice. This goal is much harder to achieve when your receptionists lose hours per day by calling patients to confirm their appointments. Automated patient reminders take over this task, thus freeing your front-office staff to interact with patients in the office. 

What are some best practices for texting patient reminders?

The power of patient text reminders is clear, but there are a few ways you might accidentally limit that power. Follow these best practices for texting patient reminders to ensure your text reminders are effective:

• Keep it brief. There’s no need to go deep into appointment details or to share private medical information. The patient reminder text should be brief. Simply state the name of your practice or the doctor the patient is seeing, the appointment date and time, and a way for the patient to cancel or reschedule. Ensure that this information is straightforward and unambiguous.
• Personalize your messages. Patient reminder texts are more effective when they start with the recipient’s name and include their doctor’s name. “Hi, Max, your appointment with Dr. Freedman is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 13, 2024, at 3 p.m.” is more effective than, “Hi, you have an upcoming appointment.” The former text immediately shows why the patient should care and makes them feel catered to, whereas the latter is unlikely to inspire interest or action.
• Know how many messages to send. Don’t overload your patients with messages — that’s a fast route to annoying them enough to cancel. A confirmation request one week before the appointment and a simple reminder 24 to 72 hours beforehand should do the trick. A third message isn’t a bad idea — but two is enough, and four is absolutely too many.
• Know when to send your patient reminders. According to CareCloud, which ranks among our picks for the best medical software and best medical billing services, 4 p.m. is the best time to send patient reminders. CareCloud studies have indicated that response rates are the highest at this time. Response rates are also high at 9 a.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Lunch-break reminders received the fewest responses.
• Include a response request. It’s one thing to say, “Hi, your appointment is this date and time; see you then.” It’s another to request that the patient send a one-word response to confirm, reschedule or cancel their appointment. The latter approach engages the patient, encourages postponements instead of no-shows or cancellations, and makes rescheduling convenient. 

The best medical software with patient reminder tools

Among our top medical software picks, we recommend these electronic health record (EHR) systems for sending patient reminders:

• CareCloud: Via the patient portal that your practice operates through CareCloud, your patients can set up their own appointment reminders. You can automatically send patient reminders via text or email as well. Read our CareCloud medical software review to learn more about this platform’s robust patient reminder features.
• DrChrono: With whatever DrChrono pricing package you choose, you can send several hundred email or text patient reminders each month. You can also send unlimited email reminders with any of DrChrono’s packages. Check out our DrChrono medical software review for more details on this EHR system’s state-of-the-art features.
• athenahealth: Through athenahealth’s medical software, you can use A/B testing to determine whether phone, email or text reminders are best for engaging your patients. You can also manually send appointment reminders via the athenahealth patient portal. Learn more in our athenahealth medical software review.
• AdvancedMD: The patient reminders that AdvancedMD automatically sends on your practice’s behalf are available in English and Spanish. These reminders also include links to intake forms so patients can complete the check-in process before they arrive at your practice. Read our AdvancedMD medical software review to learn about the other features that come with this platform.

Patient reminders are simple yet important

It’s easy to overlook the power of a text or email, but in reality, quick communications reminding patients of appointments create a win-win situation: Your practice minimizes missed appointments, and your patients don’t miss important medical check-ins. Plus, with medical software, patient reminders are usually automatic. Put your software to work, and watch your patients show up on time.