Doxy.me uses Twilio's text messaging service to send approximately three million text messages each month. These messages include both text invites to patients and waiting room text notifications to providers. On average, these messages are delivered 95% of the time.
For those times when a text message is not delivered as expected, here are the most common reasons and what you can do about it.
The message was sent to an unsubscribed recipient
This means the intended recipient chose to unsubscribe to doxy.me messaging at some point in the past. If you attempted to send an invite to this person, you would have received an error message letting you know the patient has unsubscribed.
Suggested solutions:
Send the patient an email invite instead
Send the patient a text with your room link directly from your mobile phone
Invite the patient to subscribe to doxy.me messaging by texting the word Start to 67579
The message was sent to a landline
This means that the phone number you are trying to send a message to does not receive text messages.
Suggested solutions:
Send the patient an email invite instead
Make a note in your records that this number does not receive texts, and try to obtain a mobile phone number from the patient
The message was sent to an unreachable phone
This generally means that the phone you are trying to send the message to is either turned off or out of range. It could also mean that it doesn't have a sufficient signal/connection.
Suggested solutions:
Send the patient an email invite instead
You can try sending a text invite again another time; if it fails again, it may be that the mobile carrier is blocking the message.
The message was filtered / blocked by the mobile carrier
This means that the mobile carrier - the company who supplies service to the phone - is preventing the message from going through. Over the last year, mobile carriers have become increasingly more aggressive in their attempts to block unwanted text messages. Unfortunately, this sometimes results in blocking some messages that are actually wanted. This problem can often be resolved, but it takes a bit of effort to do so and must be done by the person wanting to receive the message.
Suggested solutions:
Send the patient an email invite instead
Invite the patient to contact their mobile carrier and request that messages from 67579 and from 1-844-279-9905 not be blocked. See details below.
While we are unable to provide specific instructions for every mobile carrier on the planet, here are some basic instructions for several U.S. based carriers:
T-Mobile - Call 877-746-0909, ask for a live representative, and request that messages from 67579 and from 1-844-279-9905 not be blocked.
Sprint - Text Allow 67579 to phone number 9999. After texting, they should receive a confirmation text indicating messages from 67579 are now allowed.
Then repeat that process for 1-844-279-9905, by texting Allow 1-844-279-9905 to 9999.
AT&T - Call 800-331-0500, ask for a live representative, and request that messages from 67579 and from 1-844-279-9905 not be blocked.
Please keep in mind, changes may take a couple of hours to take effect.
If you are located outside of the United States, and are finding that many of your text invites or text notifications are not going through, please contact doxy.me support and let us know. We can then work directly with Twilio to investigate the situation and find a viable solution.