The common mistakes with patient reminders are sending to the wrong people, putting an offer or a treatment name in the message, sending too many, leaving out the opt-out, hiding the clinic's name, measuring returns without a comparison, and leaving the clinic's approval to chance. Most are easy to avoid once you can see them.
I have made versions of several of these myself while building Conduit for a cosmetic surgery group. Here they are with the fix for each. This is not legal advice, and the wording points reflect the Ahpra and TGA rules our check uses.
Mistake one: sending to the wrong people?
Yes, and it is the most common. A list that includes patients who have since booked, opted out or moved on makes a reminder feel careless. The fix is to clean the list before every send: remove opt-outs, remove anyone with a future booking, and remove test records and duplicates.
It also helps to keep a short do-not-contact list in one place that everybody uses, so an opt-out taken at the front desk reaches the export. Pull a fresh last-visit report each time. In Conduit, updates run from a fresh export on the schedule you choose, so the list is only as current as your last export. See how to find lapsed patients.
Mistake two: putting an offer or a deadline in the message?
It feels natural and it breaks the rules. Price cuts, add-ons at no charge and time-limited offers count as inducements to have a procedure, which the cosmetic guidelines do not allow. Even a soft deadline such as 'book this week' adds pressure.
The fix is to give a reason that is a fact about the patient's file: a review is due. Then one link and a way to stop. Nothing else is needed. More in offers and deadlines.
Mistake three: naming the treatment?
Yes. A treatment name may be a prescription medicine name, direct or indirect, which the TGA advertising rules do not allow to be advertised to the public. Even a harmless name puts health information on a lock screen.
The same applies to the sender line and any preview text that shows before the message is opened, since that is often all a bystander sees. The fix is 'your next review'. The patient knows what they had. Your front desk can discuss the detail privately when they book.
Mistake four: sending a stream of messages?
A run of reminders starts to read as pressure. Conduit sends one message when a review is due, not a stream, and I would keep it that way for any clinic. If the patient does not respond, that is information, and it is theirs to give.
The same goes for timing. Do not send at an hour you would not phone a patient, and do not send on the day of a patient's appointment. These are common-sense rules, not regulatory ones, and your team will have more of its own. If you want a follow-up, make it a human one from your front desk, for patients you have a reason to call. It will read differently from a second automated text.
Mistake five: forgetting the opt-out?
Every message needs a way to stop. In Conduit there is a STOP option in every message, on every plan. Without one, you remove the patient's easiest way to say no, and that tends to turn into a complaint.
Also make sure that a STOP actually removes the person from the next export. A promise to stop that the next send ignores is worse than none. Rules on consent for messaging are a legal matter, so take that part to your adviser.
Mistake six: counting returns without a comparison?
If you only count how many messaged patients booked, you will credit the message with patients who would have come back anyway. The fix is a comparison group: hold back part of the lapsed list for one cycle, message the rest and compare.
The report in Conduit compares returning patients with patients we did not message for this reason. Be suspicious of any return rate, ours included, that does not say what it was compared against.
Mistake seven: leaving approval to chance?
A message template that nobody senior has read is a risk, and the risk grows as more people edit it. Have a named person approve each template and keep a record. In Conduit each template is checked against the Ahpra and TGA rules and your clinic approves it before anything sends. Final sign-off stays with you.
The check is a wording check. It can miss things and flag things that are fine, so a human read is part of the process, not an extra. For the structure of a compliant text, read what a reminder text can say.
Which of the seven should you fix first?
- 1Add a STOP option if any message lacks one.
- 2Remove offers, deadlines and treatment names.
- 3Clean the list before your next send.
- 4Send once, to a small group, and compare with a held-back group.
- 5Name the person who approves templates.
That takes an afternoon and costs nothing but time. If you want the routine run for you, patient return reminders are the Start plan, at A$297 a month plus a one-off A$990 setup, with no minimum term. The pricing page has the details, and you can book a demo to see it on your list.