SMS in Healthcare Marketing: Engage Patients with Text Messaging

In an age where attention spans are fractured and digital communication is increasingly saturated, healthcare practices face a growing challenge: how do you cut through the noise to keep patients informed, engaged, and loyal?

For many, the answer is simple—but underutilized: SMS marketing.

Short Message Service (SMS), or text messaging, has quietly emerged as one of the most effective communication tools in healthcare marketing. What was once considered too casual for medical communication is now proving essential for patient engagement, no-show reduction, trust building, and even revenue growth.

Why SMS in Healthcare Works

You’ve likely experienced it firsthand—book an appointment and within minutes, your phone buzzes with a message confirming the time and location. Maybe it includes a helpful link to fill out your forms or a reminder the day before your visit. That’s not just good customer service. That’s strategic patient engagement—and it’s working.

According to Dialog Health, text messages boast an open rate of 98% and a response rate of 45%—compared to just 20% and 6%, respectively, for email. Their study found that of over 3,000 text messages sent to patients, 98.2% were well received, and a staggering 95.5% of patients reported feeling more connected to their care team after receiving SMS communications (Dialog Health, 2023).

The rise of SMS in healthcare marketing is largely driven by shifting generational habits. As Gen Z becomes more independent and begins managing their own healthcare, their communication preferences are reshaping the industry. But it’s not just Gen Z—studies show that even Gen X and Millennials now prefer text messaging over email. Across the board, patients are more comfortable, responsive, and engaged with SMS, making it one of the most effective tools for modern patient outreach.

These aren’t vanity metrics. This is operational transformation, and this can all be completed with a simple SMS text and an easy healthcare marketing automation that connects to your EHR. You can do this by using a CRM or another software for healthcare marketing such as zapier.

The Value of Staying Top of Mind

Patients are bombarded with messaging from every angle. Emails, ads, calls, and social media, but what cuts through the clutter is often the simplest: a text. SMS puts your practice front and center in a format that feels direct, urgent, and personal. Unlike email, which can sit unread for hours—or days—text messages are typically read within three minutes of delivery (Red Oxygen, 2023).

With younger generations now representing a growing share of patients, it's worth noting that millennials and Gen Z prefer texting over other communication methods. In fact, over 60% of younger patients prefer receiving appointment reminders and care updates via text rather than email or phone (Textdrip, 2024).

By implementing well-timed, personalized text reminders, your practice not only increases attendance but reinforces its presence in patients’ lives between visits—keeping your brand relevant, trusted, and top of mind.

Direct Communication Builds Trust

In healthcare, communication isn't a luxury—it’s a necessity. SMS allows you to communicate with patients directly, in real-time, and in a tone that is professional yet approachable. This fosters the sense that your practice is responsive, attentive, and invested in the patient's well-being.

According to YakChat, SMS is considered one of the most secure and convenient ways for patients to receive care-related updates. More than 20% of patients now prefer text messages over traditional patient portals, especially when it comes to receiving appointment reminders, test result notifications, or post-visit follow-ups (YakChat, 2024).

And when you reduce friction in communication, loyalty follows. If a patient can simply reply to a text to reschedule or ask a question, they're less likely to switch providers out of frustration. The same Dialog Health study found that 91.9% of patients believed SMS updates helped them avoid unnecessary phone calls—saving both time and resources.

Reducing No-Shows, Increasing Revenue

No-show appointments aren’t just inconvenient; they’re expensive. A missed appointment costs a typical medical practice an average of $200 per incident. Multiply that by dozens or even hundreds per month, and you begin to understand the financial significance of proactive communication.

Automated SMS reminders have been shown to reduce no-show rates to under 5%—a dramatic drop that leads to immediate revenue retention (Dialog Health, 2023). Additionally, practices using SMS for appointment reminders saw a 67% increase in confirmations compared to those using only email.

In our own client experience, the impact of SMS on revenue was crystal clear. One of our partner practices held two sales events in the same year. For the first, SMS was not utilized. For the second, we deployed a focused SMS outreach strategy. The result? Four times the attendance and six times the revenue, with a single-day haul of $38,000. No additional marketing channels were added—just SMS and social media.

This case study underscores a broader truth: SMS can serve as both a revenue safeguard and a growth accelerant. It ensures your schedule stays full, your patients stay informed, and your offerings are promoted with precision.

Enhancing Operational Efficiency

SMS doesn't just generate revenue—it helps you cut costs. Every unnecessary inbound phone call takes time and labor, whether it's a front desk assistant or a nurse answering basic questions. Automating common communication workflows through SMS reduces operational drag and streamlines staff responsibilities.

Additionally, SMS helps improve patient compliance, from pre-visit form completion to post-treatment care instructions. Practices that include links in appointment confirmations for intake forms or payment portals report faster processing and fewer on-site delays. This type of efficiency improves patient satisfaction and decreases wait times.

Real-World Results: How SMS Drove $14,000 in Monthly Recurring Revenue

At Nexamed, we've seen firsthand how SMS—when implemented with strategic precision—can unlock meaningful, recurring revenue for medical clinics. One of our partner medspas recently faced a critical challenge after receiving a cease-and-desist order preventing them from offering popular weight loss medications like semaglutide. This service alone accounted for nearly 40% of their monthly recurring revenue. In response, we pivoted to a value-driven membership model centered around aesthetic services.

Using their EHR, we built a custom webhook that triggered an automation whenever a new appointment was scheduled. From there, we segmented patients based on gender, location, and recent treatment history, filtering out non-aesthetic patients and retaining only qualified leads. Over the course of two months, we launched a sequence of four emails and two transactional SMS messages promoting the membership offer. SMS led the charge in terms of engagement—outperforming email by a factor of five in terms of click-throughs and replies.

The result: 110 new patients opted into the membership program, generating over $14,000 in new monthly recurring revenue—without spending a single dollar on advertising. That level of ROI underscores the power of SMS when it’s paired with smart segmentation, well-timed messaging, and a compelling offer.

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The Future: From SMS to RCS

While SMS currently dominates the healthcare marketing conversation, Rich Communication Services (RCS) is on the horizon. RCS builds on the foundation of SMS with enhanced features such as branding, media sharing, real-time chat, and interactive replies. As more patients adopt RCS-compatible messaging apps, forward-thinking practices will be able to leverage multimedia outreach and branded communication without relying on email or third-party apps.

We explore this evolution in detail in our blog on [RCS and the Future of Healthcare Marketing](insert link here), but the key takeaway is this: clinics that master SMS now will be better positioned to lead in the next phase of healthcare communication.

Final Thoughts

Healthcare marketing is evolving, and SMS is no longer optional—it’s foundational. Practices that fail to integrate SMS risk falling behind in both engagement and revenue, while those who embrace it are building stronger patient relationships, minimizing costly no-shows, and scaling more efficiently.

The evidence is overwhelming. SMS is not only welcome by patients—it’s preferred. It creates a direct line of communication, improves retention, and pays for itself many times over through higher attendance and trust.

If your practice is serious about growth, sustainability, and patient satisfaction, it’s time to stop asking whether SMS belongs in your healthcare marketing strategy—and start implementing it with intention.

If you're ready to build a high-converting SMS system for your clinic or medspa, reach out to our team and schedule a discovery call. We’ll show you how the right messages, sent at the right time, can transform your business.

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