Messaging Campaigns

The right message at the right time for every purpose

A campaign is a collection of one or more messages that all have the same purpose, such as sending a last minute appointment reminder, or telling a patient that theyre coming due for their prophy. Campaigns store all of the logic thats built into Lighthouse PLZ Messaging what messages to send, when to send them, when to stop sending them, etc.

Select from the standard campaigns or contact us to create a customized campaign just for you. All of the messages in any single campaign are related to each other, thereby enabling the automatic cancellation of remaining messages once the campaigns purpose is satisfied (i.e., the appointment is confirmed or a recall appointment is scheduled).

A high level view of all the PLZ campaings follows. For a very detailed description of all the campaigns and all their components, click here .

Recall Campaigns

Specific Purpose:
To remind a patient who doesn't have a recall appointment scheduled that they need to contact you to schedule one.

General Description:
Every active patient who is "on recall" and who doesn't have a recall appointment scheduled will have the following messages sent to them. PLZ will keep sending messages until the patient schedules a recall appointment, or until you inactivate them or take them "off recall" in your practice management system.

Figure 1


Campaign Variations: 
We have almost total flexibility to modify the above schedule to suit you. We can send fewer messages, or up to twice as many messages. And we can alter the timing completely, to match whatever works best for you. 

Appointment Reminder Campaigns

Specific Purposes:
There are four general types of appointment reminder messages - the specific purpose of each is listed below.

Save The Date: To remind patients to put a just-scheduled appointment on their calendar, so they can reschedule it if they have a conflict they forgot about when they made the appointment, and so they won't schedule anything else that will conflict with it.

Long Term Reminder: To remind patients of appointments they scheduled at least a month in advance, to make sure they don't have any conflicts that didn't exist when the appointment was scheduled, or to get them to reschedule if they do have conflicts. These are especially useful for hygiene appointments scheduled months in advance, but are equally effective for any type of appointment scheduled more than a month in advance. Also, to actually confirm as many appointments as possible.

Short Term Confirm: To remind patients of an appointment they have a few days from now, to reduce the number of outbound confirmation telephone calls you have to make. These go only for appointments that have not already been confirmed by one of the previous messages. They are sent 1 day before you call to confirm appointments.

Last Minute Reminder: To prevent failed appointments that occur simply because the patient forgets about the appointment just prior to the appointment time.

Schedules

PLZ sends a different number of messages based on how far in the future the appointment is scheduled. An appointment made 4 days in the future needs a different number, and different types, of messages than an appointment made 4 months in the future. The images below describe the three different schedules.

Figure 2

Figure 2 - This is what the schedule of messages looks like for any appointment made more than 30 days in the future. A few things to note:

• There's only a single postcard per appointment, so a patient without e-mail or cell phone will get only one reminder (probably what you've been doing all along).
• Only 2 e-mails and 1 SMS (cell phone text message) will be sent if the patient replies to the e-mails we send.
• All of these messages except the Last Minute Reminder are cancelled as soon as the appointment is confirmed.
• The Last Minute Reminder is cancelled if the appointment is confirmed within 12 hours of the appointment.

Figure 3

Figure 3 - This is what the schedule looks like for any appointment made more than 7 days in the future, but less than 31 days in the future. A few things to note:

• There are no postcards in this scenario, so a patient without e-mail or cell phone won't get any reminders. This is probably what you've always done.
• Only 1 e-mail and one SMS (cell phone text message) will be sent if the patient replies to the first e-mail we send.
• All of these messages except the Last Minute Reminder are cancelled as soon as the appointment is confirmed.
• The Last Minute Reminder is cancelled if the appointment is confirmed within 12 hours of the appointment

Figure 4

Figure 4 - This is what the schedule looks like for any appointment made more than 12 hours in the future, but less than 8 days in the future. A few things to note:

• There are no postcards in this scenario, so a patient without e-mail or cell phone won't get any reminders.
• The Last Minute Reminder is cancelled if the appointment is confirmed within 12 hours of the appointment

Birthday Greetings Campaign

Figure 1


Specific Purpose:
To wish each patient a happy birthday!.

General Description:
Every patient who been seen for any reason in the past two years and who has not been marked inactive in the PMS will have the Birthday Greeting campaign scheduled for them.

Campaign Variations:

• You can send a postcard to every eligible patient.
• You can send an e-mail to every eligible patient who has e-mail.
• You can send an e-mail to every eligible patient who has e-mail, and a postcard to every eligible patient who doesn't have e-mail.
• You can send an SMS (text message) to every patient who has a cell phone.