Two-way patient texting, from the front desk

Patient texting is two-way text messaging between a practice and its patients: the office sends a short text, the patient can reply, and staff answer from a shared inbox instead of a personal phone. In Lydoh it is used for confirmations when the front desk closes a request (an appointment booked, a refill sent, a message received), a receipt after Lydoh takes a request on a call, and replies, all in one thread per patient.

Yes. HIPAA does not ban texting patients. HHS guidance on e-mail says providers may communicate electronically with patients if they apply reasonable safeguards, such as limiting the amount or type of information sent, and its guidance on phone messages suggests leaving only what is needed, such as the practice name and what is needed to confirm an appointment. A patient who asks for a different way to be contacted should be accommodated if the request is reasonable.

It can be, but no texting tool is compliant on its own. Ordinary SMS is not encrypted end to end, so the practical safeguards are about content and access: keep health details out of the text, send only to the patient's own number, honor requests for another channel, and have a BAA with any vendor that handles the messages. Lydoh's texts never name a medication, test, symptom or visit reason, staff alerts never include the patient's words, and a BAA is available. We do not call it secure or encrypted texting, because SMS is neither.

Every text opens with the practice name and ends "Reply STOP to opt out." When the front desk closes a request it picks what happened, and the patient gets, for example: "Cedar Grove Family Medicine: your appointment is set for Fri Oct 16 at 10:30 AM. Reply here if you need to change it. Reply STOP to opt out." Staff see the exact text before it sends. They can also write their own, up to 220 characters.

The reply lands in that patient's thread, in the Messages tab and on the request it belongs to, and the front desk gets an alert that says a patient texted and to open Messages. The alert never includes what the patient wrote, so nothing private shows on a lock screen. Staff reply from the dashboard.

No. Staff can text people who have already contacted the practice: someone who called, texted, left a request, or is in the practice's contacts. There is no bulk or marketing sending. That keeps texting inside the kind of conversation carriers treat as expected, and keeps it a front desk tool rather than a promotion channel.

US carriers require every business that texts customers from an ordinary 10-digit number to register first, a system called A2P 10DLC. Registration asks who is sending, including a tax ID such as an EIN, and unregistered texts are blocked. In Settings you enter the legal business name, EIN, business type, address, website and a contact person. Lydoh submits them to The Campaign Registry through Twilio, and texting starts right away while the carriers review.

A2P 10DLC (application-to-person, 10-digit long code) is the US carrier standard for business texting from ordinary local numbers. Businesses register a brand and a campaign that describes what they text, so carriers can verify the sender. Since September 1, 2023, Twilio blocks messages sent to the US from unregistered 10DLC numbers.

It is part of Lydoh Frontdesk, which is a flat $199 a month with every feature included and a 14-day free trial. Texting is off until the practice turns it on in Settings.

Not yet. Patient texting is in the web dashboard today: the Requests, Calls and Messages tabs. The iPhone and Android app still handles everything else, including after-hours requests for the doctor.