Contacting Patients by SMS using Patient Lists (mail merge)
Patient Lists are perfect for finding a specific list of patients, one of the things you can do with a patient list is contact all of those patients in bulk.
Patient Lists gives you the ability to contact patients via SMS, Letter or Email, this article focuses on SMS.
GDPR
To comply with GDPR, you should only send marketing-type communications to patients who have explicitly opted to receive those communications. You should not send to patients who have explicitly opted out or made no choice.
Opening your patient list
- Go to administration - patient lists - view saved lists.
- Select the list you wish to view then open the list or double-click the list.
Contacting by SMS
Your SMS settings should already be configured with limitations to stagger sending.
It is also worth noting that if you are sending a large number of SMS via patient lists, this could delay any regular email and SMS communications from sending as these are sent in order of the date and time of creation.
- Click the SMS option in the bottom right of your patient list.
- This will open the contact by SMS prompt.
- Here you can select if you are sending single or multiple SMS.
- Grouping by family - this will send a single SMS to the head of a family instead of each family member.
- Tick as complete when sent, will help you identify which patients have successfully been communicated and which require attention or further communication.
- Select OK once you have selected all required options.
- You will now be presented with the stagger SMS prompt, here you can choose to;
- Send all SMS straight away.
- Set a staggered sending, as per your configuration, setting times allows you to ensure you do not disturb patients outside your opening hours or at inappropriate times.
- Once you have reviewed (and edited the staggered settings, if required), click OK.
- You will now be presented with the SMS details prompt, here you can select several details for the SMS template, including the template itself, and select OK when ready to proceed.
- The subject will be visible in the patient's contacts tab.
- Click OK when ready.
- The create SMS prompt will now display.
- If you selected an SMS template, this will be on screen, otherwise your SMS draft will be blank, ready for you to create your message.
- You can edit the message as required, and keep note of the character count to know how long the message is and its cost to your practice.
- The count excludes any merge fields, so you will have to estimate how long each merge field is likely to be, based on what it represents.
- Once you have created your SMS click send, EXACT will now create each individual SMS for all recipients, adding them to your outbox, ready to be sent to your patients.
- Click the OK button; the Create SMS window will now display, as for the single SMS option.
Tips and Tricks
-
If your selection criteria produce no patients as a result, a warning of “There are no patients that match the selected criteria” will display. Select OK.
You will then be presented with the Document Details window, if you are creating letters / emails / SMS messages, or the Label Details window for mailing labels.
Rather than print all letters at once, break them into batches using the "From Patient" and "To Patient" fields. For example, select patients from A-F, then G-M, N-R, and S-Z.
- The patient list entries will be updated with the appropriate SMS status icon in the type column.
For an SMS message, one of the following icons may appear, depending on the status:- SMS appointment reminder sent to the recipient (delivered).
- SMS message received by the gateway (sent, but not yet delivered).
- SMS delivery failed (where SOE is the SMS provider; password is wrong, insufficient credit, etc.).
- Reply received (for SMS reminder sent to patient).
- SMS status is not available.
- SMS failed or not sent to the gateway.
- A tooltip displays when you hover your mouse cursor over each of the icons.
- The SMS messages will also appear in the email outbox until they are sent, when they will be removed and will appear in the sent tab.
- Each one will have the appropriate icon in the status column.
Only email replies will appear in the Email Inbox. - If staggered recall settings are in effect, the column marked with a clock icon will have a corresponding icon for any items in the Outbox that are subject to the settings.
- If you hover your mouse cursor over the icon, a tooltip will tell you when the SMS is due to be sent, as in this example.
- Each one will have the appropriate icon in the status column.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.