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Unread 16th Oct 2011, 12:21 PM   #1
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How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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I was building a flyer for a dentist office and then I started to think about how much a dentist should pay for my service. At first I was going to charge the casual $125/month and 1¢ per text, but then I realized that this service is so beneficial to them and will save them over $125 in losses every day.

I am going to offer an appointment reminder service which is going to be kind of difficult to set up and require me to manage it and maintain it every single day. I'm going to have to create a list for every day of the year and add the numbers of the patients who have appointments that day. Then every morning I will have to wake up and send the text saying "Don't forget your appointment at Don's Dental Hut today! (254) 445-5565". Or I could schedule them, but my system has a problem with scheduled messages right now.

Think about how beneficial this service is to dental offices. If they have 7 missed appointments a day, that's 182 a month. If I could cut that down by 50% they would only have 91 missed appointments a month. But that 91 that I made up for would be worth anywhere from $9,000 to $20,000 to them.

So, it will take a lot of work, more time than the casual SMS client, and lots of maintenance... What do I charge?

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Unread 16th Oct 2011, 12:32 PM   #2
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That is the main problem though, you need to get the scheduler taken care of. That is the whole reason they buy into the service, as they can set and forget. Schedule the message into the future and not have to worry about it.

The way I see it is they will still pay the price you are charging but there are factors that drive that price. Location, client base (how large), your costs, etc. Its hard to say what to charge, but I know that it is A LOT of work to log in and have to manually send messages to a list of appointments each day. Best of luck in your ventures.
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Unread 16th Oct 2011, 12:53 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by frujid View Post

That is the main problem though, you need to get the scheduler taken care of. That is the whole reason they buy into the service, as they can set and forget. Schedule the message into the future and not have to worry about it.

The way I see it is they will still pay the price you are charging but there are factors that drive that price. Location, client base (how large), your costs, etc. Its hard to say what to charge, but I know that it is A LOT of work to log in and have to manually send messages to a list of appointments each day. Best of luck in your ventures.

I would manage the whole thing. So I would do this:

Set up their user account. (Although I would be the one using it.)
Create them a list for every day of the month.
Add numbers daily or every couple of days for upcoming appointments.
Wake up at 7am, send the list for that day.

That is all. So the work would be probably less than an hour a day and it would probably take me about 30 minutes or an hour to set up their service and everything. That being said, if I could charge $500/mo or more, it would definitely be worth my time and effort. (Plus a small set up fee.)

Two clients and I will have replaced my full time income that requires me to work 160 hours a month. Any costs that I have to pay (1¢ per text, $1 a month for the phone number, $8 a month for hosting) would still be less than it costs me in gas to drive back and forth to work every day.


So when my service can save a business from losing several thousand dollars a month due to missed appointments, do you think they would hesitate to pay $500?



--Or should I charge per reminder? Something along the lines of 75c or $1 per reminder sent out?

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Unread 16th Oct 2011, 09:32 PM   #4
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Get the scheduler working and get something for them to enter in to schedule

Then charge like 10 cents per text. It should be no time for you at that point.

If you have to continue to do it this is too much effort on your part.

Hell if the denist was smart he would just get a cell phone with texting and have his office girl send them out every night for the next day. Easy and fast and she could do it in like 10 mins a day.
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Unread 16th Oct 2011, 09:51 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by DEaFeYe View Post

honestly it sounds like you are working waaaay too hard for this...

shouldn't you just be able to hand them off a SAAS product to allow them to enter in their appointments, and the reminders are sent out for them?

Then you don't need to exactly worry about how much you should charge for the service, as you could solve the problem in bulk for many other services.
I am going to be using Chad's SMS plugin for WP to do this. So I can't sell it like that.

Originally Posted by lordauric View Post

Get the scheduler working and get something for them to enter in to schedule

Then charge like 10 cents per text. It should be no time for you at that point.

If you have to continue to do it this is too much effort on your part.

Hell if the denist was smart he would just get a cell phone with texting and have his office girl send them out every night for the next day. Easy and fast and she could do it in like 10 mins a day.

And I feel like managing myself (so that I can charge for management) is where the money is at. Ten cents a text, even if they had 75 appointments in a day, would only bring me $7.50 a day. I'm guessing, though, a dentist office or doctors office won't have more than 40 or 50 on a busy day, anyways... What do you think?

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Unread 16th Oct 2011, 10:11 PM   #6
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If you are handling the scheduling you have to price it so you get paid well while also not allowing the business owner to realize he could do it himself. It is juggling.

I still think getting them to imput them into an automated system is best.

As for the rate you can decide what is fair. 10 cents is likely to low really not that I think about it.

I believe you could get 25 to 50 cents per easily

and depending on the size of the office that could be 10 to 100 texts a day.

even at 10 for 50 cents that is $5 a day of passive income if they are entering it all themselves.

You might even get away with a dollar per but after a while you have to wonder when they will say it is not worth it. Also don't most dentists have one of the office girls call a day or two before as a reminder. Even if that girl is making $20/hr and the calls are 5 mins long that is still barely over a buck per call and I am sure she could get in 20 calls an hour.

You have to compete and/or compliment the systems they have in place. I am assuming most denists have a system similar to this.

1. Card given when they set appointment(normally at last apointment) Let's say this costs $1(card and labor)

2. They mail out a reminder letter or post card a month or so before. I'd say let's call this $2 dollars in cost

3. The reminder call a day or so before. Which we figured at $1 or so per call.

Now you want to add a text reminder. If you are imputing they still have the time to send you the info. If they enter it themselves you can get them talked into what will be passive income for you.

Than you sell it to other dentists and doctors and etc

Charge a set up fee of say $199. And you can get a nice income going. Also you may want to charge a monthly fee besides the per text. Say $49/ month plus 50 cents per text. if the system is easy to use I could see them going for this.

Also remember for many dentists it's not like they make that great of income. Health care on the other hand they do because insurance has allowed them to raise prices without the public really thinking about how much they are paying. Few people have dental insurance. So it is more affordable. But that means the dentist is likely to be thinking more of costs vs. a doctor.

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Unread 16th Oct 2011, 11:56 PM   #7
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The problem is most phone plans a small business gets these days offer unlimited local calls. The dentist also has a receptionist sitting there twiddling their thumbs for a part of the day. Why are they going to pay for an sms reminder system when they can just do things the old way and have their receptionist call up and confirm with all of tomorrows patients. Let's face it, it won't take them very long to call 20 - 30 people and it isn't costing them a cent.

If you are looking to sell sms services to local businesses you are much better off going after those businesses where an sms campaign can actually add money to their bottom line - it is going to be a much easier sell for you.

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Unread 17th Oct 2011, 12:03 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by lordauric View Post

If you are handling the scheduling you have to price it so you get paid well while also not allowing the business owner to realize he could do it himself. It is juggling.

I still think getting them to imput them into an automated system is best.

As for the rate you can decide what is fair. 10 cents is likely to low really not that I think about it.

I believe you could get 25 to 50 cents per easily

and depending on the size of the office that could be 10 to 100 texts a day.

even at 10 for 50 cents that is $5 a day of passive income if they are entering it all themselves.

You might even get away with a dollar per but after a while you have to wonder when they will say it is not worth it. Also don't most dentists have one of the office girls call a day or two before as a reminder. Even if that girl is making $20/hr and the calls are 5 mins long that is still barely over a buck per call and I am sure she could get in 20 calls an hour.

You have to compete and/or compliment the systems they have in place. I am assuming most denists have a system similar to this.

1. Card given when they set appointment(normally at last apointment) Let's say this costs $1(card and labor)

2. They mail out a reminder letter or post card a month or so before. I'd say let's call this $2 dollars in cost

3. The reminder call a day or so before. Which we figured at $1 or so per call.

Now you want to add a text reminder. If you are imputing they still have the time to send you the info. If they enter it themselves you can get them talked into what will be passive income for you.

Than you sell it to other dentists and doctors and etc

Charge a set up fee of say $199. And you can get a nice income going. Also you may want to charge a monthly fee besides the per text. Say $49/ month plus 50 cents per text. if the system is easy to use I could see them going for this.

Also remember for many dentists it's not like they make that great of income. Health care on the other hand they do because insurance has allowed them to raise prices without the public really thinking about how much they are paying. Few people have dental insurance. So it is more affordable. But that means the dentist is likely to be thinking more of costs vs. a doctor.
I like the way you think! I have been thinking a lot today about charging just that, $49/month and then 25¢-40¢ per reminder. (Possibly a $99 set up fee.) I could make good income and although I would still have to do some work, it would end up being well worth my time. I would probably spend no more than 10 minutes a day working the system. 10 minutes a day, 20 business days a month, that's just over 3 hours a month for $300+. Well worth my time, I say.

My system would eliminate the call that they would have to make. And the reminder would be on the morning of so it would be on their mind for that day. I may invest some money to get a system made that will allow me to send out call reminders, etc, etc to make it perfect for health care facilities and such.

And yes, dentists may not but health clinics do. This is what I'm looking at:

Lets assume that your average per-patient revenue is $125. If you have an average of four missed appointments on the schedule each day, those lost appointments result in $500 lost revenue. That adds up to an alarming $120,000 in lost revenue in a year’s time.

Thus, if my appointment reminder could even fix one would-have-been missed appointment a day, it would pay for itself and reduce the businesses' losses by thousands a year.

Originally Posted by DEaFeYe View Post

Out of curiosity, why are you so narrow minded?

I know I've made it obvious that I can write a piece of software like this... I gave you an account the other day.

It's not super trivial work, but it's well within my skill set to say, hook up a Google Calendar API and the Twilio API

But you do you...

I think I should invent an internet superhero... kind of like superman, but call him SUPER CLICKY BUTTON MAN with a big WP on his chest
I looked at Tifo, sir. There's no guide on how to use it. I'm lost in there. And your pricing is crazy and stupid! I can make it work with the SMS WP plugin and send out 9,900 texts for $99. You want to give me one keyword and 1,000 texts? Ha!

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Unread 17th Oct 2011, 12:23 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by Larches View Post

My system would eliminate the call that they would have to make. And the reminder would be on the morning of so it would be on their mind for that day. I may invest some money to get a system made that will allow me to send out call reminders, etc, etc to make it perfect for health care facilities and such.

And yes, dentists may not but health clinics do. This is what I'm looking at:

Lets assume that your average per-patient revenue is $125. If you have an average of four missed appointments on the schedule each day, those lost appointments result in $500 lost revenue. That adds up to an alarming $120,000 in lost revenue in a year’s time.
Reminding people on the morning of their appointment is fairly useless if you ask me. If someone then tells you they can't make it you have a very slim chance of being able to fill that appointment at such late notice. You are always going to want to remind them AT LEAST 24 hours before their appointment, that's what my dentist does.

I also think they much prefer calling in these reminders because it means they get an immediate response from the person which then allows them to quickly fill any cancellations that might arise. Sending out a text message is not going to get you the same immediate response. People might read the text right away but it doesn't mean they will respond to it right away, if at all.

Most dental surgeries I have ever been to also have a cancellation policy whereby if you chose to cancel and don't give them 24 hours notice, you are liable for a fixed fee so they are not left with nothing.

I haven't tried selling this sms reminder service to dentists so I can't say for 100% sure but I just don't see it being a huge time saver for them. It really isn't a huge deal to call 20-30 people. Each phone call is nice and quick, all you are doing is confirming an appointment. You will also find a lot of dental surgeries are full of the old-school dentists who much prefer to do things the old-fashioned way. They don't want to send 75 year old Nancy an sms reminder because she doesn't even have a mobile phone.

I think there are MUCH easier sells when it comes to sms marketing.

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Unread 17th Oct 2011, 06:45 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by DEaFeYe View Post


shouldn't you just be able to hand them off a SAAS product to allow them to enter in their appointments, and the reminders are sent out for them?

This is exactly what I do. We have their scheduler linked to our database. It automatically saves the time and date for the appointment and the day of spits out however many appointments are scheduled. It is a pure set and forget service. We charge a setup price of $1500 and $550 per month. No limit on texts because we send the texts in house and don't rely on a service to do so. We started about 4 months ago and have 67 clients (Dentists & Doctors using our service.

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Unread 17th Oct 2011, 06:51 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by WillR View Post

Let's face it, it won't take them very long to call 20 - 30 people and it isn't costing them a cent.
Not true, it still takes money to make this happen..Say 2 hours to call 30 people @&10/hr here is $20 per day at 20 working days thats still $400 a month that the receptionist could have been doing something else. If they would rather have the receptionist do the calling, then no biggie. However, what if she is sick, or on vacation, or to busy to call or forgets... My service is never sick, never on vacation, and never to busy. I do see your point and it is valid, however there are thousands of businesses who would gladly pay to have it automated and forget it.

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Unread 17th Oct 2011, 07:29 PM   #12
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sprks79 sounds like you have the perfect product for these doctors and such. Great system. You should offer a way to outsource to other warriors. I think you could make a lot of money.
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Unread 17th Oct 2011, 07:43 PM   #13
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Our experience is more along the lines of Sprks79. Ask the dentist what the average value of an appt is, find out what his no-show rate is, and how much that is costing him in revenue. Ask him/her if they agree that a set-it-forget-it reminder system could prevent 2-4 open appointments per month. It's an easy value proposition from there, just do the math and charge appropriately ($300-$500/month in my experience).

As for the phone vs SMS reminders, phone is ineffective, you are mostly just leaving messages, and sometimes on a house phone that doesn't get retrieved at all or too late, etc. SMS is instantaneous-response, you get confirmations, requests to reschedule, and it prompts people to call the office if there's a problem. Plus they have the reminder on their cell phone with clickable phone number etc. The offices I've seen using SMS reminder are very happy.

Not to mention all the other SMS marketing that can be done to help the medical office get new customers, increase frequency (reminders that it's time to schedule regular cleanings) and promote supplemental income streams (for dentists: whitening, electric tooth brushes, etc).

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Unread 17th Oct 2011, 07:52 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by lordauric View Post

sprks79 sounds like you have the perfect product for these doctors and such. Great system. You should offer a way to outsource to other warriors. I think you could make a lot of money.

I am currently working on a way to co-op with other warriors. or anyone for that matter. Plan to have something solid by the end of the year.

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Unread 18th Oct 2011, 10:56 PM   #15
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I spent money to have a stand alone appointment reminder system built using Twilio as the back end. If there is anyone looking to offer a dedicated appt reminder system to offline businesses and keep costs low using Twilio, PM me for more information.
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Unread 19th Oct 2011, 03:03 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by Larches View Post

I was building a flyer for a dentist office and then I started to think about how much a dentist should pay for my service. At first I was going to charge the casual $125/month and 1¢ per text, but then I realized that this service is so beneficial to them and will save them over $125 in losses every day.

I am going to offer an appointment reminder service which is going to be kind of difficult to set up and require me to manage it and maintain it every single day. I'm going to have to create a list for every day of the year and add the numbers of the patients who have appointments that day. Then every morning I will have to wake up and send the text saying "Don't forget your appointment at Don's Dental Hut today! (254) 445-5565". Or I could schedule them, but my system has a problem with scheduled messages right now.

Think about how beneficial this service is to dental offices. If they have 7 missed appointments a day, that's 182 a month. If I could cut that down by 50% they would only have 91 missed appointments a month. But that 91 that I made up for would be worth anywhere from $9,000 to $20,000 to them.

So, it will take a lot of work, more time than the casual SMS client, and lots of maintenance... What do I charge?
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Unread 19th Oct 2011, 05:51 AM   #17
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I have worked with many Dentists the last few years and most of them use: Creating consumer demand for small business|Demandforce

It's an all in one solution for patient reminders via SMS/email and online appointment scheduling.

Best of luck!
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Unread 19th Oct 2011, 09:11 AM   #18
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Here are some stats that I have found dentist or dr offices respond to nicely...

15% of calls for appointment reminders end in VM that most of the time are not listened to (if at all) until the appointment time has passed.

The average salary of the assistant making the calls $17/hr.

Average length of time per call is 1 minute and 45 seconds and the average number of calls from a single dr or dentists (usually multiple in one office) per day is 20.

Doing the math for a two man office there is 40 calls made at a total time of 1 hr and 10 minutes that costs the office roughly $20, the assistance's time and 6 to 7 people are actually spoken to.

Then compare that to 95-100% of them receiving the message via text, total time to send a message to 40 people say 5 minutes, total cost...fill in the blank...they are not just saving the money but an assistance's time and a larger number of reminders make it to the recipients in a timely manner.
Depending on how many DR/Dentists are in the office...$5 a day, per dr or $100 per month per dr and the cost is justifiable.

I have found that most dr/dentists are receptive to this approach because all of them I know always question paying an assistant as much as they do, just to do little things like office cleaning, taking out trash, calling, etc. Then you can throw in as an added bonus some of those things that eatdrinktextjay has mentioned.

Goodluck,
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Unread 20th Oct 2011, 04:36 AM   #19
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Re: How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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I was going to use Chad's plugin for my mobile marketing sms service but it did not work for me, too many undelivered messages and slow support issues. I didn't know he had an appointment module with that set up... ...must have been an update.

I have seen others charge up to $1500 to set up an appointment scheduler and then charge $149 / mo. I'm also looking to add an appointment / scheduler service as an add-on on top of our managed sms services.

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Unread 20th Oct 2011, 11:07 AM   #20
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Originally Posted by xlfutur1 View Post

I spent money to have a stand alone appointment reminder system built using Twilio as the back end. If there is anyone looking to offer a dedicated appt reminder system to offline businesses and keep costs low using Twilio, PM me for more information.
PM sent.

Originally Posted by BKH View Post

Here are some stats that I have found dentist or dr offices respond to nicely...

15% of calls for appointment reminders end in VM that most of the time are not listened to (if at all) until the appointment time has passed.

The average salary of the assistant making the calls $17/hr.

Average length of time per call is 1 minute and 45 seconds and the average number of calls from a single dr or dentists (usually multiple in one office) per day is 20.

Doing the math for a two man office there is 40 calls made at a total time of 1 hr and 10 minutes that costs the office roughly $20, the assistance's time and 6 to 7 people are actually spoken to.

Then compare that to 95-100% of them receiving the message via text, total time to send a message to 40 people say 5 minutes, total cost...fill in the blank...they are not just saving the money but an assistance's time and a larger number of reminders make it to the recipients in a timely manner.
Depending on how many DR/Dentists are in the office...$5 a day, per dr or $100 per month per dr and the cost is justifiable.

I have found that most dr/dentists are receptive to this approach because all of them I know always question paying an assistant as much as they do, just to do little things like office cleaning, taking out trash, calling, etc. Then you can throw in as an added bonus some of those things that eatdrinktextjay has mentioned.

Goodluck,
b
I like to think that they pay for more than just the money that it saves on labor. It's the effectiveness and the convenience.

Originally Posted by HawaiianSon View Post

I was going to use Chad's plugin for my mobile marketing sms service but it did not work for me, too many undelivered messages and slow support issues. I didn't know he had an appointment module with that set up... ...must have been an update.

I have seen others charge up to $1500 to set up an appointment scheduler and then charge $149 / mo. I'm also looking to add an appointment / scheduler service as an add-on on top of our managed sms services.

Good luck!

Mitch
-I haven't experienced failed messages yet. I like Chad's plugin. And I am using my own ingenuity to make it work for appointment reminders, the system is not set up for it.

Originally Posted by TrumpiaTim View Post

From Trumpia's experience, most medical/dental practices will pay about $50 - $80 a month for the ability to send out automated appointment reminders.
My sales pitch goes along the lines of...

"Let’s assume that your average per-client revenue is $125 and also that you average four missed appointments per day. Those missed appointments cost you $500 a day and an alarming $146,000 a year."

I am not saying that you are wrong, but even if my service could only reduce two missed appointments a week, I believe the service would still be worth $200+.

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Unread 20th Oct 2011, 12:46 PM   #21
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Re: How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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Originally Posted by xlfutur1 View Post

I spent money to have a stand alone appointment reminder system built using Twilio as the back end. If there is anyone looking to offer a dedicated appt reminder system to offline businesses and keep costs low using Twilio, PM me for more information.
hi there,

I can't pm you, can u email me the detail to waiyichoi at hotmail?

thx
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Unread 20th Oct 2011, 12:53 PM   #22
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Re: How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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I have this type os set-up with a local dentist here in Austin,Tx. I charged $1200 for the "start up fee" and then $150 per month for the service. It has been a bit cumbersome to manage but well worth the few minutes a day. once set-up was completed.
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Unread 22nd Mar 2012, 08:41 PM   #23
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Re: How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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I think your idea is great.

If you're a programmer, its very easy to design a daily sms platform.
You can do it quite reliably via the open gateway (smtp) or you can go ahead and pay bigger bucks and get a short code.
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Unread 22nd Mar 2012, 09:19 PM   #24
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Re: How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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Ok, I'll chime in here... First off, I'm a doc and I own the professional network for niche of doctors (8K plus). There are already services like this out there to a extent...
The best way to do it, from our testing, is based on a per text or per patient basis...

Most are averaging around 10 cents per text...

I would love to speak with you and JV with you if you get this up and going

Cheers
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Unread 22nd Mar 2012, 11:09 PM   #25
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Re: How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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I don't understand what the problem is from a technical standpoint. I have Chad's appointment reminder system and the scheduling works great! You must have the cron jobs set up properly on your host for it to work and some hosts only let you set a cron job in 15 min intervals (but that really shouldn't be a problem if your notifications go out 24 hrs in advance). If its a problem with your host then get another host.

The one shortcoming his plugin currently has is that you can't import appointments in via csv but he's promised that should be done in a week or so. The work around for that would be to let the receptionist input the appointments into the system as their being scheduled. With a good "White Label Branding" plugin you can definitely turn the system over to them with little problems and move on to the next Dentist.

I use: Plugins - White Label Branding for WordPress | CodeCanyon

It has white label branding and a user role editor built in to allow the dentist to have access to the appointment reminder and the broadcast plugin simultaneously. This gives the system true value because it they can cut "no shows" and increase sales for other elective services.

Regarding WillR's comments: The great thing about Chad's plugin is that it will text, call (using a text to speech engine or mp3) and/or email the client. There's nothing stopping us from typing a landline into the calling area to reach the little old lady who never turns her cellphone on.

Bottom line: Don't overcomplicate the process. Set the SYSTEM up so that receptionists can use it and move on so you scale up to multitudes of dentists - You can still collect a healthy fee by stepping away (maybe more once you deduct the cost of YOUR time).
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Unread 23rd Mar 2012, 04:01 AM   #26
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Re: How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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I would just program SMS schedules or outsource online SMS services and charge 50c for each SMS - and test it with the dentist, how much appointments he managed to save..
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Unread 27th Mar 2012, 08:02 PM   #27
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Re: How much should a dentist pay for SMS?
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HypeText said in another thread that when dealing with dentists/medical offices. In order to be HIPAA compliant (and operating legally) the medical office has to upload the appointment data themselves. I believe if you want to handle the appointment data, you have to get HIPAA certified or some (don't quote me on this).
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