Permissions: You must have Organization Administration Permissions.

Automatic Appointment Reminders are an Organization wide setting. Enabling Reminders sets them for your entire Organization. After Appointment Reminders are setup, Staff can enable or disable reminders at a Client level. You can setup one or all of the reminders below:

Email Reminders - Free
Phone Reminders - $0.10 per minute in the United States
Text Reminders - $0.10 per text message in the United States to send the Reminder and $0.10 per text Response (Confirmed, Cancelled, Reschedule).

NOTE: A text message is 160 characters. If your message is 180 characters it would be $0.20. Learn more below.

Additionally, if you choose to use Text and Phone Reminders you will be able to do the following:

Receive Client Appointment Responses - After a Client responds to the Appointment Reminder (Confirm, Cancel, or Reschedule), My Clients Plus will log that Response as an updated Client Appointment Status.
Get Staff Appointment Status Notifications - Once a Client has responded to an Appointment Reminder, Staff assigned to the Appointment will receive a notification via My Clients Plus alerts at the top of their screen. Additionally, Organization Administrators can enable Text Response Notifications for their Organization. This would allow Staff to receive a text message to their mobile device with the Client's response.

IMPORTANT : Enabling Text Message Response Notifications would be an additional $0.10 per response sent to the Staff Member. Therefore, it would cost you $0.10 to send the reminder, $0.10 to receive the response, and another $0.10 to send that Client response to the Therapist.

Research Shows

Research shows that on average, mental health providers experience a no-show rate of 23-34%. Some practices have as high as a 60% no-show rate. This not only results in poor outcomes for patients, but in a significant threat to your revenue cycle.

Here’s the math:

29% no-show rate
6 patients per day
$200 avg. Appointment value
264 business days in a year

Total Loss: $91,872

There are several ways to remind the patient that they have an upcoming Appointment. The three most common ways are via email, phone call or SMS text messaging. Here’s what you need to know about your options.

Email Reminders

Email Reminders are a simple message sent to a patient’s designated email address that contain brief HIPAA-compliant messaging reminding the patient of their upcoming Appointment. They are free to use inside of your My Clients Plus account. One important factor to consider is that, in general, the average open rate for emails is just 22%. That means out of 30 patients per week, only 6-7 of them will read the reminder you send them.

Phone Call Reminders

Phone Call Reminders can also be automated in your My Clients Plus account for just $0.10 per minute. If your patients answer, they will hear a brief recorded message reminding them of their upcoming Appointment. If they do not answer, the message will be left on their voicemail. It’s important in this case to note that only 33% of voicemail from business contacts are listened to, and only 18% of voicemail from unknown numbers are listened to.

SMS Text Reminders

Text messages consist of a brief, generic, HIPAA-compliant message sent to your patient’s designated phone number reminding them of their Appointment. These types of Reminders can also be automated from inside your My Clients Plus account for just $0.10 per reminder. What makes this type of reminder a preferred method is the fact that more than 90% of people not only read a text message but read it within the first three minutes of receiving it.

Patient Satisfaction Matters

In a recent survey of approximately 14,000 patients who were asked how they would like to be reminded about upcoming Appointment, the results were as follows:

48% prefer Text Message
29% prefer Phone Call
21% prefer an Email Reminder

How effective are Appointment Reminders?

Numerous studies show the effectiveness of Appointment Reminders in the behavioral health setting. Some indicate that no-show rates can be reduced to less than 5%. When considering making the choice for your practice, compare your costs to the potential loss you will experience based on the above math. We think you’ll agree that Appointment Reminders are a very cost-effective way to help improve patient outcomes while strengthening your revenue cycle overall.

Appointment Reminder FAQs

You have the ability to schedule reminders to be sent multiple times prior to the appointment. Additional reminders will be sent even if the appointment is confirmed, but no additional reminders will be sent if the appointment is canceled.
If the Client is not initially reached on the day the reminder is scheduled, My Clients Plus will retry an hour later.
If you use both Phone and Text Reminders, once a User is reached and has input a response (Confirm, Cancel, Reschedule), My Clients Plus will stop trying to reach the Client. This way the Client doesn't get a text after confirming via phone or vice versa.

Ready to Get Started? Next Steps:

Confirmations On The Agenda

Prevent Reminders from Going to Certain Clients:

Simply go to the client's details page and mark the box for "Do not contact by . . ." and they will be excluded from that reminder channel.