SMS Services for Doctors & Healthcare Providers 

Communicating with your patients via SMS texting significantly enhances the patient experience and office logistics. Your patients have their phones with them everywhere they go, and texting has become the preferred method of communication for almost all age groups.

Moreover, over 90% of people open a text within three minutes of receiving it. With SMS services, you can send appointment reminders, form links, stay in touch with your patients, streamline communication, and much more.

What are SMS services? 

You may be asking yourself what exactly SMS services are. Simply put, they allow you to automate many of your communication needs by using SMS messages via a web platform like TextSanity.  

By using online software instead of a physical phone, you can set up automated messages to be sent to your patients when and as needed, such as requesting appointment confirmations. As you can imagine, this is far more efficient than having an office staff member send out individual text messages.

Below we will discuss many ways SMS services can benefit your clinic, office, or healthcare organization. 

Why SMS services are important for doctors and healthcare providers 

SMS services are important for doctors and healthcare providers for many reasons. These are the top four benefits of automating your communications with texting:

­

• Automate repetitive tasks
• Communication 
• Saves money
• Scheduling

Automate repetitive tasks

The benefits of automation have long been known. Industries across the spectrum utilize automation to reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve process efficacy. Most daily products, such as vehicles or the packages we receive from Amazon utilize automation.

Automation can serve the same purpose in your office, especially when handling repetitive tasks. For instance, you will always need to complete certain healthcare forms for both new and existing patients. If you use text messaging services, you gain the ability to send these forms to your customer’s phones via text so that they can be completed before they arrive.

Having this capability means that your patients can arrive at their appointment without needing to complete further tasks before being seen by their provider. Automating these repetitive tasks can reduce wait times and increase patient capacity. 

Communication 

Good communication is essential in all relationships and is the foundation for success. Whereas poor communication results in frustration and misunderstandings, good communication develops lasting and effective relationships.

SMS services give your office unique and enhanced abilities to communicate effectively internally and externally. 

Examples of SMS communication in healthcare

For instance, automating SMS appointment reminders, confirmations, and cancellations is paramount to reducing wait times in your office. 1 in 5 patients states that long wait times are the reason they switch doctors, and nearly 9 out of 10 patients consider wait times critical. 

Additionally, rescheduling missed appointments and no-shows and sending notifications for follow-ups, and annual check-ups can be done easily with SMS communication services. 

Your medical practice is a machine that runs with many moving parts. Therefore, your internal communication is just as important as your external communication. 

Effective communication between staff, nurses, and doctors is essential and contributes to patient wait times.

In another example, with SMS texting your front desk staff can:

1. Alert the intake nurse that a patient has arrived
2. The intake nurse can then alert the charge nurse that a patient is in their room
3. Who can then alert the doctor or provider about the room 

With so much going on in your office, having this ability to communicate quickly saves time, reduces how long patients wait to be seen, and increases the services you provide them. 

Saves money

SMS services save you money. Starting, owning, and operating a private practice is costly. Healthcare spending in the U.S. averages $12,500 per person. The average salary for a nurse in the U.S. is $65,000. Add in all the other expenses, such as utilities, staff salaries, business taxes, and medical equipment, and the costs compound quickly.

Using SMS services for much of your patient communication needs can quickly pay for itself. Suppose you are currently faced with needing another medical assistant to handle patient communications. In that case, the cost of SMS services will be far less than their salary and benefits. 

Scheduling

Scheduling is one of the most important tasks your staff complete daily. Patients will need to make, adjust, and cancel upcoming appointments constantly. SMS texting to accomplish these requests and tasks significantly increases how efficiently your office runs.

In addition to your patients scheduling needs, your staff also have scheduling needs, such as time off and sick days. With SMS services, you can give them the ability to schedule their vacations, alert others of their absence, and reduce the workload on your management. 

How to use SMS for doctors 

As a doctor, you have many patients you care for who can create complex communication issues. You need the ability to communicate with your patients efficiently and quickly, especially concerning their health.

The ability to send HIPAA-compliant SMS text messages to a patient creates a way to mitigate communication barriers and deliver pertinent health information quickly and securely. 

In addition to patient communication, SMS services also allow you to remain in touch with your patients, especially those you don’t see very often. Doctors would visit their patients’ homes in days long gone, creating a unique opportunity to form lasting relationships. SMS texting, in a sense, makes a similar opportunity.

With our software, you can create drip campaigns that send messages to a group of patients organized and designed by you. For example, you may have a drip campaign for birthdays, for just men, just women, and so on.

With TextSanity, the possibilities are endless.

How to use SMS for healthcare providers 

Healthcare providers have complex communication needs, especially if your network consists of several doctor’s offices, specialists, hospitals, and fitness centers. You need efficient and simple communication tools with many clients and patients spread across your healthcare system.

SMS services from TextSanity provide the solution. From managing staff, doctors, and other professionals, to remaining in touch with your patients, SMS texting is the affordable solution to creating sustainable high-end communication for your organization for many of the same reasons listed above.

You have a lot going on, so having our automated software with features such as a texting calendar, keyword campaign builder, and drip campaign builder helps streamline your communication needs.

What to do next  

Call, chat, or text us today to learn what features our platform can offer your office or healthcare organization to enhance your interoffice and patient communications. 

With TextSanity, you can elevate your communication and offer your patients the convenience of SMS texting for much of their healthcare needs, all while confident that you are HIPAA compliant. 

We cannot wait to connect with you, and amidst the COVID pandemic, we want to thank you personally for all you do to keep us healthy.