Text messages keep medical practices and their patients connected. Whether it’s sending reminders for upcoming appointments, requesting provider reviews, or sending a link to fill out a patient survey, SMS messaging helps build relationships and contributes to an overall positive patient experience.
For the majority of healthcare practices in today’s digital world, much of these text messages can be automated, saving team members time and effort, while still requesting valuable feedback from patients. Unfortunately, quite a bit of spammy text messaging comes over the airwaves, and according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), that’s illegal.
Carriers are attempting to reduce spam calls and texts, especially as it applies to businesses and organizations who send texts to private mobile phone numbers. They’ve set up a new ecosystem to better manage the situation: Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging via standard 10-digit long code (10DLC) phone numbers.
A2P 10DLC is the new standard for text messages that originate from an application using a 10-digit number (3-digit area code, plus 7-digit phone number). What this means for your medical practice or healthcare organization is that you need to register your brand with mobile carriers in order to avoid excessive messaging fees and filtering.
Why it’s so important for your practice to register with mobile carriers
Simply put, by registering your organization (your brand) with
mobile carriers before the deadline of September 30, 2021, you can avoid increased message fees and message blocking that originates from unregistered numbers. When you register your medical practice, it helps authenticate your number so it’s not seen as spam. That way, mobile carriers see the texts as legitimate and allow them to go through to the intended recipient.
If you don’t register your practice phone numbers, beginning October 1, 2021, there will be a higher risk of increased per-message carrier fees and filtering. Messages sent from unregistered numbers may fail to reach intended recipients, depending on the mobile carrier.
If the carrier is AT&T or T-Mobile—two of the biggest wireless providers in the United States—up to 90% of A2P 10DLC text messages may not get through, including review requests and patient survey requests. When you register your practice, it allows mobile carriers to provide better delivery quality and lower message filtering so texts are more likely to reach your patients without issue.
At SocialClimb, we’re making it easy for practices to register with mobile carriers. If you are one of our customers, you will receive a link via email so you can provide the requested information about your practice or healthcare organization before October 1, 2021. Once you’re registered, you’re good to go!
