For a medical practitioner, there can be nothing as frustrating as a missed appointment. Such no-shows might seem normal. However, they not only cost precious medical practice time, but also severely impact a patient’s treatment continuity.
Notifying patients of their scheduled appointment times well in advance, is essential to ensure your medical practice functions smoothly. No-shows or people running late causes a disruption in the services and prevents the doctor from extending adequate time and care to other patients.
That’s why it’s important to have an advanced appointment reminder system in place to reduce no-shows. Fortunately, in this age of technology, you can integrate the use of an automated appointment service to streamline this entire process. Moreover, your staff can be relieved from the time-consuming task of making phone calls to remind patients of their scheduled appointments.
Among numerous other ways to remind the appointments, SMS has emerged as one of the most effective mediums. In this age of multitude of advanced and smart communication tools, SMS still enjoys an outstanding open rate of 97%. This makes SMS one of the most efficient tools to send out appointment reminders.
Advantages of Using SMS as Appointment Reminder
One of the major reasons behind the missed appointment is often attributed to forgetfulness. In our fast-paced life, things have become too hectic to keep a track of multiple appointments. In such a situation, receiving a notification to refresh the memory of the patients and ensure that they don’t miss their appointments.
1. The Most Efficient Communication Tool
As mentioned earlier, SMS has an impressively good open rates as compared to other tools like emails. Moreover, an average individual spends almost 4 hours a day on their phone. So, this makes SMS one of the popular communication tools to send appointment reminders. This automated reminders which notifies the patients about the upcoming appointment that makes it easier for them to remember it.
2. Better Chance of Advanced Notice
SMS reminders for medical appointments is a great way to enable your patients an opportunity to notify the doctors in advance, if they are unable to make it. For example, if you send a SMS a week before the scheduled appointment, they are more likely to respond to confirm their appointment or even reschedule it. Moreover, such seamless communication enables the front desk to reschedule patients while still having adequate time to fill any new vacant time slots.
3. Enhance Your Patient Experience
Using SMS reminders can also help enhance the overall patient experience. This gives them the ability to quickly and effortlessly communicate with the doctor’s office. With this you can also further nurture your relationship with patients which further makes the treatment smooth and hassle-free.
If you are looking for automated SMS appointment reminder for your medical organisation, feel free to contact SMS Solutions.
