Dental recalls
and reminders.

A patient who's already been to you is the cheapest one to bring back. Yet 16.1% of people delayed dental care because of cost, and plenty more just forget. A well-timed, easy recall does more for most practices than a new campaign.

Make it easy to act: a booking link, a phone number, and the practice name so they know who's texting.

The Spam Act covers commercial electronic messages. These need consent, clear identification of the sender, and an unsubscribe that works, with requests actioned within 5 working days.

The Spam Act treats some messages as designated commercial electronic messages, mainly factual information with no offer. An appointment confirmation fits there. A recall that invites someone to book a new, paid service is less clear-cut, because it can count as offering a service. Even a factual message must say who it's from.

The simplest safe path: ask for consent to recalls at the first visit, include your practice name, and add an opt-out to recall messages anyway.

Paste a recall or reminder SMS to see which parts look promotional.

Send recalls a few weeks before the patient is due, then one follow-up. More than that starts to feel like nagging.

Keep the clinical reason general. A text can be seen by others, so 'Your check-up is due' is better than mentioning a treatment.

For families eligible for the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, the cap is $1,158 over two calendar years for periods starting in 2026. A factual reminder that a child's check-up is due helps families use it. Keep any promotion out of it.

Children's dental problems are a common cause of preventable hospital stays: ages 5 to 9 have the highest rate of potentially preventable dental hospitalisations. A reminder that gets a child in for a check-up does real good.

Patients overdue by a year or more are worth a separate, gentle message. Many stopped coming because of cost or a bad experience, not because they moved.

A factual note that it's been a while, with a booking link, is enough. If you want to mention fees, payment plans or a new service, that's marketing, so send it only to people who agreed to it.

Ask at the first visit, on the new patient form: one box for appointment reminders and another for news and offers. Record the answer, and honour unsubscribes quickly.

Then send the promotional messages only to those who ticked the second box.

Check your practice software's message templates once a year. Promotions creep into reminder templates over time, usually one helpful line at a time.