Broadcast Messages

Broadcast messages let you reach all patients (or a filtered subset) with a single message for announcements, health reminders, or practice updates.

Sometimes you need to communicate with your entire patient panel at once. Flu shot availability, holiday hours, a new provider joining the practice, or a change in office location: broadcast messages handle these one-to-many communications. DPC Pro lets you target broadcasts by membership status, plan type, provider panel, age, or other patient attributes.

This page covers how to compose and send a broadcast, choose your audience, and review delivery results. Broadcast messages can be sent through email, SMS, the patient portal, or push notifications, depending on your practice settings and patient preferences.

Patients who respond to a broadcast are routed to the standard messaging inbox where your team can reply individually.

Who Can Send Broadcasts

Broadcast messages require elevated permissions. Only the following roles can create and send broadcasts:

• Administrators
• Practice managers
• Physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants

Other staff roles do not have access to the broadcast feature.

Compose a Broadcast

To create a new broadcast message:

1. Navigate to Messages → Broadcasts.
2. Select Create Broadcast.
3. Fill in the broadcast details:
   • Name: an internal label to identify this broadcast (not visible to patients). For example, “March Flu Shot Reminder” or “Holiday Hours 2026”.
   • Subject: the subject line patients see (required for email delivery; optional for SMS).
   • Message Body: the text of your message. You can use personalization tokens to customize each patient’s message:
     • {{first_name}}: replaced with the patient’s first name
     • {{last_name}}: replaced with the patient’s last name
     • {{practice_name}}: replaced with your practice’s name
   • Priority: set to Low, Normal, High, or Urgent based on the importance of the message.
4. Continue to audience selection.

HTML Content for Email

If you select email as the delivery channel, you can provide an HTML version of the message body for richer formatting. The plain-text version serves as a fallback for email clients that do not support HTML.

Keep It Concise

For SMS broadcasts, keep the message body short. SMS messages are delivered as plain text with your practice name prepended (for example, “Acme Primary Care: Your flu shot is available…”). Longer messages may be split into multiple texts.

Select Your Audience

After composing your message, choose who should receive it.

Targeting Options

DPC Pro offers three targeting approaches:

1. All Patients: send to every active patient at your current practice.
2. Saved Segment: select a previously created patient group that matches specific criteria.
3. Custom Filter: build a one-time filter to target patients by specific attributes.

Using a Saved Segment

Segments are reusable patient groups that your team has defined in advance. To use one:

1. Set the targeting type to Segment.
2. Select a segment from the dropdown. The segment’s description and patient count are shown.
3. The criteria from the segment are applied automatically.

Segments come in two types:

• Dynamic segments re-evaluate their criteria each time they are used. The patient list may change between broadcasts as patients join, leave, or update their records.
• Static segments use a fixed list of patients captured at the time the segment was created. The patient list does not change unless the segment is manually refreshed.

Building a Custom Filter

If you need a one-time audience that does not match an existing segment:

1. Set the targeting type to Filtered.
2. Use the filter builder to add conditions. Available filter fields include:

Category	Filter Options
Patient	Chronic conditions, allergies, blood type
Demographics	Age, gender, state, city, ZIP code
Membership	Has active membership, membership status, plan name, contract end date
Appointments	Days since last visit, total appointment count, has upcoming visit
Registration	Patient status, registration date

3. Combine conditions with AND or OR logic. You can nest groups for more complex criteria.
4. The preview updates to show how many patients match your filter.

Filter Snapshot

When you send a broadcast, the filter criteria are saved as a snapshot. This means the delivery report accurately reflects who was targeted at the time of sending, even if patient data changes afterward.

Previewing Your Audience

Before sending, preview the recipient list to verify your targeting:

1. Select Preview Recipients on the broadcast detail page.
2. DPC Pro displays the total count and a sample of matching patients with their names and contact information.
3. Review the breakdown by demographics to confirm you are reaching the right group.

If the count looks incorrect, adjust your filter criteria or choose a different segment.

Choose Delivery Channels

Select how the broadcast is delivered:

Channel	Description
Patient Portal	The message appears in the patient’s portal inbox as a conversation. Patients can reply, and replies are routed to your team’s inbox.
Email	Sent as an email using your practice’s email configuration. Includes the subject line, formatted body, and personalization.
SMS	Sent as a text message via Twilio. The message is prefixed with your practice name. Best for short, time-sensitive announcements.
Push Notification	Sent as a push notification to patients who have the mobile app installed.

Select one channel per broadcast. The broadcast is delivered through that single channel to all recipients who have valid contact information for it.

Patient Opt-Out Handling

Patients who have opted out of the selected channel are automatically excluded from the broadcast. Their recipient record is marked as Skipped in the delivery report with a note indicating the reason (for example, missing contact information or opt-out).

Reply Handling

For portal-delivered broadcasts, patients can reply. You can configure how replies are routed:

• Assign to Sender: replies go to the staff member who sent the broadcast.
• Assign to Patient’s Provider: replies are routed to each patient’s primary provider.
• Leave Unassigned: replies appear in the inbox without assignment for any staff member to pick up.

Review and Send

Before sending, review all broadcast details on the summary page:

1. Name and subject: verify the internal name and patient-facing subject.
2. Message body: read through the message, checking personalization tokens.
3. Audience: confirm the recipient count and targeting criteria.
4. Channel: verify the delivery channel.
5. Priority: check the priority level.

Sending Immediately

1. Select Send on the broadcast detail page.
2. Confirm that you want to send.
3. DPC Pro begins delivering the broadcast. The status changes from Draft to Sending and then to Sent when delivery is complete.

Delivery happens in the background. You do not need to keep the page open. The broadcast continues processing.

Scheduling for Later

Cancelling a Broadcast

If you need to stop a broadcast that is in progress or scheduled:

1. Open the broadcast detail page.
2. Select Cancel.
3. Pending recipients who have not yet received the message are marked as Skipped. Recipients who have already received the message are not affected.

Cancellation Limits

Once a message has been delivered to a recipient, it cannot be recalled. Cancelling a broadcast only prevents delivery to remaining recipients. Review your message and audience carefully before sending.

Delivery Reports

After a broadcast is sent, the delivery report shows detailed statistics.

Summary Metrics

Metric	Description
Total Recipients	Number of patients targeted.
Sent	Number of messages delivered to the delivery provider.
Failed	Number of messages that could not be delivered.
Opened	Number of recipients who opened the message (email only).
Clicked	Number of recipients who clicked a link in the message (email only).

Delivery Rate and Open Rate

• Delivery rate: percentage of targeted recipients who received the message (sent / total recipients).
• Open rate: percentage of delivered messages that were opened (opened / sent). Open rate tracking is available for email broadcasts only.

Per-Recipient Status

Each recipient has an individual delivery record showing:

Status	Meaning
Pending	Queued for delivery.
Queued	Handed to the delivery provider.
Sent	Delivery confirmed by the provider.
Delivered	The recipient received the message.
Bounced	The email address bounced or phone number was invalid.
Failed	Delivery failed after retries.
Unsubscribed	The recipient opted out of this channel.
Skipped	The recipient was excluded (missing contact info, opt-out, etc.).

Automatic Retries

If a delivery fails, DPC Pro automatically retries up to three times with increasing delays between attempts. Failed recipients that succeed on retry are updated to Sent status. The retry system runs hourly and processes up to 100 failed recipients per cycle.

Engagement Tracking

For email broadcasts, DPC Pro tracks:

• First open: when the recipient first opened the email.
• First click: when the recipient first clicked a link in the email.

Only the first open and first click are recorded. Subsequent opens and clicks are not tracked.

Managing Segments

Segments are reusable patient groups that make targeting broadcasts faster. To manage segments, navigate to Messages → Segments.

Create a Segment

1. Select Create Segment.
2. Enter a Name and optional Description.
3. Choose the Segment Type:
   • Dynamic: re-evaluated each time the segment is used. The patient list updates automatically.
   • Static: captures a fixed list of patients at creation time. The list does not change unless manually refreshed.
4. Build filter criteria using the filter builder (same options as the custom broadcast filter).
5. Select Save.

The segment shows the current matching patient count and a sample of matching patients.

Edit a Segment

1. Navigate to Messages → Segments.
2. Select the segment to edit.
3. Update the name, description, or filter criteria.
4. Save changes. The patient count is recalculated automatically.

Refresh a Segment Count

Segment counts are cached for performance. To get an updated count:

1. Open the segment detail page.
2. Select Refresh Count.
3. The system re-evaluates the filter criteria and updates the count.

Segment names must be unique within a practice.

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Related Pages

• Send and Receive Messages
• AI-Drafted Replies
• SMS and Email Notifications
• After-Hours Communication
• Communication Preferences

Need Help?

If you run into issues with broadcast messages, reach out to the DPC Pro support team at [email protected] or visit the troubleshooting guide.