With many patients considering their phones a staple in their lives, healthcare providers can use SMS (short message service) to stay in contact with their patients. Also known as text messages, SMS allows for fast, convenient, and comprehensive communication. Discover the benefits of health SMS inpatient correspondence and how you can take advantage of it in your practice.
Advantages of SMS Marketing in Healthcare
The following benefits of medical SMS messages will help you maintain clear doctor-patient communication before, during, and after appointments.
Personalized Communication
With a feature-rich text messaging platform like Red Oxygen, you can tailor your text messages to your patients’ needs. Use automated or semi-automated SMS messages that speed up communication while keeping your correspondence high-quality. If a patient has questions, they can reply to your messages to begin a text conversation.
Dynamic Appointment Scheduling
Make the most of your administrative and medical teams’ schedules by optimizing the appointment process through text. With an SMS platform, you can send automated appointment reminders that enable the patient to confirm, cancel or reschedule. These reminders will help you reduce no-shows, free up your administration team’s schedule and bring in more patients. Your patients will also appreciate the convenience of text reminders and rescheduling.
Improved Prescription Communication Accuracy
If your organization handles prescriptions, text messages can make every step of the filling process more efficient. Text notifications save time for both the patient and the pharmacy by reducing the need for patients to follow up on their prescription status. Through SMS, you can also confirm wait times and pickups to minimize the time patients spend in line or the waiting room.
Enhanced Patient Loyalty
Healthcare SMS messages improve patient loyalty through personalized communication, convenience, and attentive care. Patients pay attention to a practice’s technological capabilities and turnaround times, making it critical for doctors to make high-quality communication convenient. Regular reminders and health advice will also help you maintain a doctor-patient relationship outside the office.
EMR Integration
Many practices can integrate SMS messaging into their electronic medical record (EMR) workflow for easy documentation. A platform like Red Oxygen with APIs and third-party integrations connects to EMRs to send and record your text communication. If you prefer to keep things simple, you can also copy the text from the platform and paste it into your EMR.
How to Leverage the Power of Medical SMS Messages
Healthcare SMS platforms enable medical organizations to use test messages in applications like the ones below.
Appointment Management
The feature-filled nature of modern text messaging platforms makes it possible to automate appointment reminders while enabling back-and-forth communication between practice and patient. Using an SMS platform, you can set up automated appointment reminders and patient responses while fielding any related messages the patient sends about the appointment.
Follow-Up Instructions for Care
Post-appointment care matters as much as the appointment itself, and text messages can help your patients understand what they need to do for their health. When medical services require action on the patient’s part, you can send them a text reminder linking them to detailed information.
Bill Payment
By requesting bill payment through text, you can get compensation faster than you would with a paper bill and improve patient satisfaction. Your bill reminder can include a convenient link to your preferred payment site or enable your patients to authorize payment through their preferred method.
Notifications and Updates
Text messaging platforms allow you to send updates and reminders to custom patient lists to combine personalization and automation. For example, you can remind patients to get their flu shots or get in touch with every patient on a waiting list.
SMS Healthcare Solutions From Red Oxygen
At Red Oxygen, we partner with healthcare organizations for SMS messaging through convenient online platforms and custom integrations. We build redundancy into our messaging service aggregation to deliver your patient messages promptly. Features like customizable numbers and privacy measures will help you ensure that your patients feel respected and understood.
Integration With Direct CONTROL
Australian healthcare providers can link their Red Oxygen platform to their Direct CONTROL EMR software for appointment confirmation. When one of your patients confirms an appointment, Direct CONTROL will notify you through email. The Direct CONTROL third-party integration will also let you customize the message you send through the EMR.
Contact Us for More Information
To learn more about using Red Oxygen for your practice, contact our team at any time We have offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.