Kaitlyn Orred
Healthcare appointment reminders are short text messages or automated voice calls that tell a patient when and where their next medical appointment is. A good one names the practice, gives the date, time and place, and asks the patient to reply to confirm. Text-Em-All doesn't encrypt messages at rest, and standard SMS can't be encrypted in transit, so Text-Em-All isn't a HIPAA-compliant platform. So keep health information out of the reminder.
Text-Em-All can also send the same reminder as an automated voice call, for patients who'd rather get a phone call than a text. Here's how text message reminders work in general, and what else healthcare teams send with it.
The healthcare industry is at the forefront of everyone’s mind lately, thanks to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While telemedicine has become increasingly popular, there will always be a need for patients to see healthcare providers in person.
Whether your practice is currently offering telehealth options or you’re still seeing patients face-to-face, one thing that the healthcare industry can benefit from is using an automated appointment reminder service. Let’s talk a bit about the benefits, best practices, and how you can use healthcare appointment reminders to your advantage.
Patient communication preferences
Did you know that 88% of all healthcare appointments are scheduled by phone? While some things warrant a phone call, a whopping 31% of Americans prefer texting whenever possible. What does that mean for your healthcare facility? Simply put, email appointment reminders and phone appointment reminders are a thing of the past. If you’re not using a healthcare appointment reminder system, you could be missing out.
Why you should be using appointment reminders
According to a 2018 survey, about 42% of healthcare patients miss or skip their appointments. While health systems may not be able to do very much about the patients who skip out on their appointments on purpose, you can reduce the no-show rate by investing in automated message scheduling software. When a patient misses an appointment, it’s more than just frustrating for a healthcare practice. There are many drawbacks to consider, including:
- Missed opportunity for new patients
- Decrease in patient satisfaction
- Revenue loss
Why patients miss appointments
People no-show to appointments for a variety of reasons. Some can’t take time off work, and some simply forget. By sending out healthcare appointment reminders, it’s less likely that your patients will forget about their scheduled time.
What reminders do for your practice
There are plenty of reasons why automated appointment reminders should become a part of your healthcare practice, including:
- The most effective way to communicate.
- Gives your front office staff a break.
- Customer satisfaction will increase.
- You’ll save time, money, and resources.
What are the best practices for texting a patient reminder?
Once you’ve decided on an appointment reminder service, there are a few best practices to keep in mind to help you accomplish your goals and increase patient satisfaction and engagement.
Don’t send too many messages
One of the worst mistakes you can make is overdoing it with your patient appointment reminders. While sending multiple messages can be helpful, there’s a fine line between staying informative and being annoying. For example, messaging your patient once or twice in the days leading up to their appointment can be helpful and reduce no-shows. But bombarding them with multiple messages may actually increase their stress levels and cause them to either cancel, no-show, or go elsewhere.
A good rule of thumb is to send your patient three reminders about their upcoming appointment, spaced out. While it’s important that your patients all show up, it’s even more important to keep their satisfaction in mind so they’ll return and recommend your practice to others.
Our own data backs this up. In the 12 months ending July 2026, health practices had the highest opt-out rate of 23 industries on Text-Em-All: 1.12%, across 115 organizations and 524,142 messages. No other industry we measured has less room for one message too many. Treat three reminders as a ceiling, and stop once a patient has confirmed.
Source: Text-Em-All text broadcasts of 10 or more recipients, August 2025 to July 2026. Industry comes from each organization’s current account record.
Make your messages clear and concise
The point of sending a text message is to offer as much information as possible with as few words as possible. You don’t want your patient appointment reminders to be difficult to read. Make them clear and concise. Keep in mind that 95% of text messages are read within three minutes of being sent. Your message should be readable in just a few seconds.
For best practice, your texts should include:
- Who is sending the text.
- Specifics on appointment information.
- Option and steps for cancelling.
Don’t include private patient information or health information in your automated reminders. Here’s what that looks like. Everything the patient needs, and nothing about why they’re coming in:
Sample text: Riverside Family Clinic: your appointment is Tuesday, October 13 at 2:30 PM at 410 Main Street. Reply YES to confirm, or call (555) 010-0142 to reschedule.
The clinic is made up, so swap in your own details. Then read it the way a stranger would on a locked phone screen. If they could tell what the visit is for, take that part out. That includes the practice name: if it names a specialty, sign the text with a general name your patients will still recognize.
Consider a response request
If you want to increase patient engagement, consider asking for a response when you send an appointment reminder text. For example, you could ask the patient to respond with “yes” if they still plan on coming or “no” if they wish to cancel.
While you should never make a response a requirement, offering it as an option can help you to gain more insight into your doctor appointment reminder service.
Make your text reminders personal
Another good idea is to personalize your appointment reminders. Whether you’re using healthcare appointment reminder calls or texts, no one wants to feel like they’re just another number. Make sure to use the patient’s name whenever you send appointment reminders. You can also include the healthcare provider they’re planning on seeing.
Avoid common mistakes
The biggest mistake you can make is skipping appointment reminders or appointment scheduling software altogether. As stated above, you could be losing revenue for every appointment that doesn’t show up to your practice. Below are two mistakes to avoid:
Not enough message reminders
If you do decide to use an appointment reminder system, don’t make the mistake of using your messages sparingly. We already talked about the best practices for how often and how many messages you should send. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “worrying” that you’re annoying your patients. As long as you space your message appointments out the right way, you won’t be sending too many.
Don't send a message too early or late
You’ll also want to avoid sending your messages at the wrong time(s). You obviously don’t want to make a call or send a text reminder in the middle of the night. But did you know there are ideal times of day for both phone calls and messages?
Best time to contact patients
Studies have shown that the best time to send a text message is in real time, around 6 pm, usually when people get off work. While you don’t need to follow this exact time, you can use it as a guide. The last thing you want to do is send a patient reminder too early or too late in the day. Waking someone up or disrupting them isn’t the impression you want to set with a patient.
Using Text-Em-All to your advantage
If the idea of sending out patient appointment reminders seems overwhelming, it certainly doesn’t have to be. Working with an appointment reminder solution like Text-Em-All can make life easier. Not only can you make your appointment reminders more personal, but you can also improve your patient experience and reduce no-shows. In doing so, you’ll increase the likelihood that they will stick with your practice, keep their appointments, and refer others to you.
What to expect
Using Text-Em-All minimizes the work for appointment reminders. You tell us who to contact and when, and we’ll send out your automated appointment reminders. Beyond that, you're in complete control of the settings of your message appointment reminder. That includes personalization fields, message responses, and more.
After a reminder goes out, the Broadcast Details screen sorts every patient on the list into one of seven outcomes: Delivered, Failed, Invalid, Incomplete, Opted Out, Replied, or Not Replied. Open Failed, and you'll see the reason for each one, so the front desk knows who to call before the appointment. Delivered means the carrier accepted the text. No texting platform can confirm that a patient opened it.
Why text reminders work better than calls
It's estimated that somewhere between five and 30 percent of patients don't show up for their appointments. But it's not for a lack of trying. Many health systems spend lots of money and resources reaching out prior to each appointment, making sure that the appointment date and time are well-known in advance.
But it's not like people are magically getting more forgetful. It's that they have more things vying for their attention, that the helpful reminder call from a few days ago probably went unanswered, and that the voicemail was never listened to. So what can you do when those missed appointments start to become a real problem for your bottom line?
The answer is appointment reminders by text message, the easiest and most efficient way to reach out to your patients without making those annoying phone calls that nobody wants anyway. Whether it's due to an inability to get time off from work or if something else pops up, a text appointment reminder is simply much more visible than that missed call in the call log.
Appointment reminders are efficient
Unlike that phone call that has to be answered within 10 seconds or else it's off to voicemail purgatory, an appointment reminder is a great way to inform a patient of their upcoming appointment without taxing your resources or risking another missed call. That's good because everyone always has their phone, which is more than we can say for that appointment card that was left in a bag, thrown in a drawer, or stuck on the fridge. Since some appointments can be made weeks or months in advance, that can mean the difference between making that appointment and having to schedule another.
Communicate with your no-shows
Life happens. Stuff comes up, work goes long, and even the most well-intentioned patients miss an appointment now and then. But with text appointment reminders, your patients can stay in the know before that next appointment comes around. Furthermore, by following up after those rare missed appointments, you can easily reschedule or reach out without having to jump on the line. A quick link can provide them with direct access to your scheduling, or you could always share a couple of available times and let the patient decide what works for them.
Lead a happier staff
Ironically, text-based appointment reminders are more likely to be welcomed by your staff, as they no longer need to spend time calling and following up on appointments, including what patients should bring or prepare for on the day of their appointment. Automated text appointment reminders can do all that heavy lifting, as well as reschedule appointments and answer simple questions that would otherwise require someone to block out an afternoon. Better yet, your appointment reminders can all be sent automatically whenever a patient hits certain triggers, allowing your staff to focus on higher-value tasks.
Improve patient satisfaction
It might sound like an annoyance to be sending all these text messages all the time, but patients actually prefer them, at least compared to a phone call. Unlike a phone call, a text can be ignored until it's convenient to address, which means you'll likely get a response even if it's not immediate. That's much better than phone calls that have to be made over and over until someone responds, which may not be possible given people's work or school schedules during your open hours. By giving the patient the power to engage when they're ready, you're improving their satisfaction with your service by merely introducing appointment reminder texts.
Questions about medical appointment reminders
What are medical appointment reminders?
Medical appointment reminders are messages a practice sends before a visit so the patient remembers the date, time, and place. They go out as texts or automated voice calls, scheduled in advance from the practice's list of upcoming appointments. The useful ones name the practice, give the details, and make it easy to confirm or reschedule without calling the front desk.
How do patient text reminders work?
Patient text reminders work by sending each patient on an appointment list a short scheduled text with their own date and time. The practice uploads the list, writes one message with fields for the appointment details, and picks when it goes out. Replies come back to the practice, so a YES confirms the slot, and a question reaches a person.
What should a medical appointment reminder text message say?
A medical appointment reminder text message should say who it's from, the date and time, the place, and how to confirm or reschedule. Leave out the reason for the visit, the provider's specialty, test results, and anything else about the patient's health. Someone glancing at a locked phone screen should learn nothing except that there's an appointment.
Are healthcare appointment reminders HIPAA compliant?
Healthcare appointment reminders sent via Text-Em-All should not contain health information because Text-Em-All isn't a HIPAA-compliant platform. It doesn't encrypt messages at rest, and standard SMS can't be encrypted in transit. Keep reminders to a time, a place, and a way to reply. If a message must carry patient health information, send it through a vendor that has signed a business associate agreement with your practice.
Conclusion
Text-Em-All appointment scheduling software couldn’t be easier to use, and SMS reminders could provide better patient care. Healthcare appointment reminders are a necessity for medical practices nowadays. Make sure you’re using scheduling software you can trust to reduce patient no-shows.