Practice tip of the week: Texting patients

With all the useful information available on Physicians Practice, it is easy to become overwhelmed.

With this in mind, the tip of the week is a chance to reflect on some of the wisdom found all across the site. In this August 2021 article on proper etiquette when sending text messages to patients, Jonathan Tornetta gives this tip:

Keep your messages under 160 characters

A single text message is limited to 160 characters. Exceeding that limit makes it less likely that your patients will read everything that you send them. Finally, if you are paying per message, you will increase your costs by exceeding this limit.

Many text message platforms help you keep your message concise. You can paste your message into Microsoft Word or an online word or character counter to ensure that your message is less than 160 characters.

If you need to convey more information, have the text message instead refer to another communication channel. For example, “Your appointment on <date> needs to be rescheduled. Please check the patient portal for details.”

Click here to read the rest of the article and be sure to check back next week for another Tip of the Week!