SMS marketing for health clinics: Best tools, tips, and templates for patient texting 

If you run a health clinic, chances are you’re always looking for ways to connect with your patients better. Strong patient connections help you maintain appointment attendance, encourage patients to follow their treatment plans, and build trusting relationships. 

SMS’s speed and convenience make it a great tool for staying connected with your health clinic patients. And patients agree – healthcare is the second most likely industry people told us they would opt into texts for. 

With the right tools and knowledge, you can smartly use SMS for your health clinic’s marketing and communication. We’ll explain how to use text messaging for your clinic and offer tips and templates. 

How to use SMS for health clinic marketing 

In industries like healthcare, marketing can take many forms. SMS marketing applies to promotional texts, of course, but it also includes informational texts like appointment reminders. Any form of communication you have with your patients raises awareness about your clinic, putting it under the umbrella of text message marketing. 

In other words, you can use SMS marketing for a wide range of patient communications, including: 

• Appointment reminders and confirmations 

• Test results links 

• Prescription refill notices 

• Health advice 

• Clinic announcements 

• Due for treatment reminders 

• Requests for reviews 

• Answers to patient questions 

However, as you text, you need to keep texting regulations and healthcare-specific laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) in mind. As a healthcare provider, you have a higher level of privacy to account for in texting. 

HIPAA-compliant texting 

If you’re in the United States, you still have to follow HIPAA’s rules for electronic communications as you text. Text messages can be HIPAA-compliant, but they must follow these rules: 

• They don’t include any of the personal identifiers specified in HIPAA, including name and contact information. 

• The patient you text gives you express consent for you to message them. 

• The patient you text understands the risks involved in communicating health information over text. 

Practically, this means you should: 

• Provide your patients with a disclosure explaining that texting isn’t 100% secure (i.e., someone can see their messages if they get into their phone) and get their written permission to text you. You can take care of both of these tasks when onboarding a new patient. 

• Exclude information about the patient or their treatment in your texts, avoiding patient names, treatment names, and full prescription names. 

The top tools for texting your patients 

Now that you understand how you can use secure texting in your clinic, it’s time to review the tools that go into SMS. Since healthcare has extra security considerations, we recommend: 

A secure mass texting app like SimpleTexting 

When you’re looking for a mass texting app for sending SMS to your patients, keep an eye out for features focused on security and compliance. For example, SimpleTexting has encrypted messages and automatic opt-out prompts to maintain trust with your patients. Some other helpful features for healthcare clinics include: 

• Two-way texting for receiving and addressing patient questions 

• Scheduled texts for scheduling reminders 

• BCC-style texting for patient security 

• Away messages so you can direct patients to emergency care when you can’t answer questions 

• Segments and groups so you can organize patients by provider or treatment 

Secure devices 

Make sure that the devices you text from are secure, too. If you only plan on texting from your clinic, you can keep your texting software on a computer protected with a secure login. But, if you find a need to text outside of your clinic, ensure that anyone with access to your texting platform uses a secure device owned by your organization. 

HIPAA-compliant automations 

Considering how many opportunities you have to send reminders in healthcare, automations can save you the work and time involved with them. But HIPAA requires your software to be compliant every step of the way, including third-party automation services. Even though the most popular automation platforms out there are incredibly useful, they unfortunately aren’t all HIPAA-compliant. 

On the bright side, texting platforms like SimpleTexting come with built-in automation features so you can minimize the number of apps your patients’ information touches. In SimpleTexting, for example, you can use: 

• Autoresponders: Autoresponders send texts a set amount of time after someone joins your texting list. They work well for briefing patients on basic information or reminding someone that they’re due for their first follow-up. 

• Scheduled texts: You can also schedule texts in advance to set up reminders right after a patient completes an appointment. Create a template in SimpleTexting for appointment reminders, add the correct date and time, and cross the reminder off your to-do list. 

• API: If you have access to developers to help you manage your clinic technology, you can integrate our API into your software to enable texting. 

3 tips for patient texting in healthcare 

With the basics and tools down, you can now learn more about what tactics and techniques to keep in mind as you text your patients. Here are three tips we have for patient texting: 

1. Create solid opt-in and opt-out processes 

Under texting regulations, you need to have opt-in and opt-out processes in place to send marketing messages. Technically speaking, these laws apply to promotional texts, such as advertising a new service. But you can maintain patient trust by following them for transactional texts (such as existing appointment reminders) as well. 

As we mentioned before, since you have patients fill out paperwork already, you can use a form to get patient consent. Include all of the disclaimer language the law requires for promotional texts. On top of that, you can set your texting platform to have a double opt-in process. 

But you should also offer your patients a clear way to opt out after they start getting your texts. SimpleTexting makes this easy by providing a free opt-out compliance message with every text. Your opt-in disclaimer should also include instructions for opting out. 

2. Understand what counts as protected health information (PHI) 

Since you can’t include protected health information (PHI) in your texts under HIPAA, you’ll need a strong grasp of what that information is. One big component of PHI is the personal identifiers specified in HIPAA, which include: 

• Names 

• Location identifiers based on subdivisions smaller than a state (e.g., Pennsylvania is okay; Philadelphia isn’t) 

• Important dates such as birthdate, admission date, and date of death 

• Contact information like telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email addresses 

• Identifying numbers like Social Security numbers, medical record numbers, and health insurance plan numbers 

• Vehicle identification details like license plate numbers 

• Device identifiers 

• Any URLs that include one of the other personal identifiers 

• IP address numbers 

• Biometric markers like fingerprints and voice prints 

• Full-face images of the patient 

The other component of PHI is information related to treatment, such as: 

• Diagnoses 

• Medical records 

• Details about treatment 

• Prescription names 

• Information related to payment for medical services 

When in doubt, be as generic as possible, and link the patient to the details in your secure patient portal, where they’ll need to log in. 

3. Text at appropriate times 

Texting regulations also require you to text at appropriate times of day. These times vary from state to state, and they apply to the state that the recipient belongs to. So, if your patient receives a text from you during a vacation in Florida, your text must follow Florida’s texting hours. 

The best practice we recommend is to text between 11 AM and 8 PM Eastern time so your text arrives at a reasonable time for recipients no matter where they are in the United States. However, you should also look into the regulations for your state and the surrounding states to be sure. 

Patient message templates to inspire your texts 

Texting your patients without including their personal details can sound tricky, but it’s just a matter of context. Here are some example texts for the most common types of SMS messages healthcare clinics send. 

Upcoming appointment reminder 

Appointment reminders are one of the most popular kinds of texts for healthcare practices to send. Note the date, time, and location, and prompt your patient to confirm the appointment. 

 

Telehealth appointment reminder 

Telehealth appointment reminders work pretty similarly to standard reminders, except you can send a secure link to attend the appointment. You should also specify the time zone of your appointment time in case the patient is in a different time zone when getting the reminder. 

Due for treatment 

If a patient hasn’t scheduled an appointment in advance, such as for long-term follow-ups outside of your scheduling range, you can also send a reminder when treatment is due. Remember not to include details about the treatment – you can mention those when the patient schedules over the phone. 

Test results announcement 

You can also let patients know their test results are ready over text as long as you don’t include information that identifies the patient, the test, or the results. Keep it vague and prompt the patient to contact you for the results, or leave a secure link that requires login. 

New treatment announcement 

Here’s an idea for a promotional text to send to your patients: announce when you have a new treatment available. Since this information isn’t specific to a patient, you can share details about your treatment in this text. 

Health advice 

Texts are also great for bite-sized health tips or links to advice on your blog. 

Patient satisfaction survey 

If you run patient satisfaction surveys, you can send them over text to have patients take them right on their phones. 

Try out SimpleTexting for healthcare SMS 

If you’re looking for an SMS platform for your health clinic, why not give SimpleTexting a shot? We offer solid message security for a business texting platform and convenient features to help you send your texts efficiently. Dr. Travis estimates that his team has “seen a 40% increase in patient education“ thanks to using our easy platform.

What was a pleasant surprise was that I could upload my database from my electronic records right into the texting service. We usually have to manually enter data into our medical devices—so it was very nice to just upload it and have it ready.

Dr. Taylor Travis

Owner, Family Focus Eye Care

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