An email appointment reminder is the long-form half of the reminder pack: it carries what a text cannot, the pre-visit instructions, the map and parking, the reschedule link and the cancellation window, and it goes out first, days ahead, with the text following the day before. The Cochrane 2013 review measured mobile phone messaging reminders raising attendance from approximately 67.8% to 78.6%; email is not what that review measured, and its job in the pack is different: it is the message the patient reads at a desk and acts on, not the one they glance at on a lock screen. This page says when email is the right channel, what it must carry, and when it goes out, and the free reminder template on this site carries the email variant beside the text.
When email is the right channel
When there are instructions: a form to complete before the visit, a fasting or medication line, directions to a practice the patient has not visited, a deposit or cancellation window to restate. Email is also the channel for a patient who has not agreed to be texted, and for a practice that does not send text at all. Recallvia Pro sends email reminders under the practice name and deliberately does not send text, so the email variant is the one it runs.
What the email must carry
The practice name in the subject with the day; the date and time in the first sentence; the pre-visit paragraph; a confirmation question; the reschedule route; the practice's number in the footer. Nothing about the reason for the visit, and nothing about the cost of a missed one, which belongs in the terms and lowers the reply rate if it appears here. The sample on the dental reminder email page on this site is the structure filled in.
When it goes out, and what follows
Days ahead, because Dantas et al. 2018 name high lead time between booking and visit as a main determinant of no-shows and the email is the touch that lets a patient rearrange while the slot can still be refilled; then the text the day before. The free template on this site takes the lead time and the touches as inputs and prints the messages a week and the hours by hand, so a practice sees the sending load before it chooses.
Questions people ask about email appointment reminder
Is an email reminder as effective as a text?
The measured evidence is for text messaging. Email does a different job in the pack: the instructions and the reschedule route, days ahead. Send both where the patient has agreed to both.
What subject line should an email appointment reminder use?
The practice name and the day: your hygiene visit at Oak Street Dental on Thursday. The patient decides whether to open it from the subject alone, and a subject that reads as marketing is deleted.
Does an email reminder work as well as a text?
The Cochrane 2013 evidence is for mobile messaging; the email carries the link and the details and the text gets read. Send both, the email at booking and the text in the days before.