A FQHC meets patients where they are by using text messaging, resulting in a 17% decrease in no-shows and a 14% average increase in the number of daily patients. Vista Community Clinic, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) with eight locations in southern California, was struggling to reduce their number of no-shows. No matter what they tried, their rate averaged 23 percent. In some departments, it was over 30 percent. VCC had a text-messaging platform, but it wasn’t bidirectional, so patients couldn’t respond and their email system wasn’t addressing the problem. “There was no flexibility there, just an automated system,” said Michelle Monroe, VCC’s Chief Operations Officer. The organization had tested out another messaging system designed to send text blasts out to patien

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