Why your doctor’s office is spamming you with appointment reminders

Have a doctor’s appointment soon? Prepare for an onslaught of reminders.

Going to see the doctor soon? Prepare to be hounded with appointment reminders by phone. By text. By robocall. By email. And in your online “patient portal.” Doctors and dentist offices for years left a courtesy voicemail on patients’ home answering machines giving them a heads-up about their appointment. But now, medical practices are flooding patients with reminders of upcoming appointments — and warnings of cancellation penalties. The financial pressure for medical practices to keep patients from ghosting them is a major factor. Practices miss out on revenue when a patient doesn’t show up for an appointment or cancels at the last minute and the slot sits empty. But the notifications are getting worse because new software systems enabled medical providers to send automated messages to patients. Health care providers often have multiple notification systems — one for electronic medical records, another for prescription medications, and a different one from the marketing department, for example — that do not coordinate with each other. This can lead to notification overload for patients. “All of these systems were built for the provider and were never patient-focused,” said Oliver Kharraz, the CEO of ZocDoc. “You need to do this in a coordinated way for it to work.” ZocDoc sends three reminders to patients when they schedule a visit on its booking marketplace: the first a week before the visit, the next a day before, and a third and final text three hours before the appointment.