I believe that MYChart has the capability to send reminders to patients.  They can get reminders via text message,  email, US Mail, and phone call. The calls and email Often people schedule appointments so far in advance they often forget the appointments.  In my department we call the patients to remind them of the appointments.  We request a call back and if they do not call back the appointment is cancelled. The patient is given multiple opportunities to make contact. If the fail to return the call, we document in APEX in Phone Encounters the attempts we made to  contact the patient. If the patient has not returned the call by the day prior, I would say  cancel the appointment.

We communicate very clearly what our expectation is and if we have not heard from the patient by a certain date and time, the appointment will be cancelled. It helps to free up appointments for same day urgent patients. Patients who fail to respond are usually the patients who no-show. Responsible people call us back. We message this out to our patients so it does not come as a surprise. It can be labor intensive, but if everyone takes a few patients it makes the work not so daunting.

Reminder notices are helpful.... If you can automate them it's even better, then the process is automatic and not labor intenstive. It would be great if the patient could receive several reminder options, for instance a patient could choose phone call and text message. It is difficult to  get to 100%, but I think this would significantly reduce the number of no-show visits and help effectively utilize our resources.