Office Closure Texts for Patients: What to Say and When to Send
Weather, holidays, emergencies and providers out sick each need a different message and a different send time. Here's how to handle each one.
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The short answer
An office closure text tells patients you're closed, when you'll reopen, and where to go in the meantime. Send weather and emergency closures now, as soon as you decide. Schedule holiday hours a few days ahead, between 9am and 8pm in the patient's time zone. Always give patients somewhere to go: your phone line, an open location, a telehealth option, or 911 for emergencies. Keep closure texts informational, with no offers, and send anything about a specific patient's appointment as a Secure text with link.
Risky vs safe: the same closure text, rewritten
Risky
Safer
An offer can turn an informational closure notice into a promotional text, which should only go to patients who gave written consent.
Risky
Safer
In an Insecure text, the specialty and visit type are PHI. Keep the regular text generic, or send the details as a Secure text with link.
Why closure notices go wrong
Snow closes the office at 6:45am. The front desk starts calling the day's patients, gets voicemail, and some patients drive in anyway. A holiday closure goes on the website and the phone message, but patients who don't check either find a locked door.
A closure text that does reach patients often leaves out the one thing they need: what to do instead. "We're closed today" without a number to call or a reopening time just moves the calls to tomorrow.
What practices usually try
Phone trees and voicemail greetings reach only the patients who call. Email is easy to miss on a busy morning. A group text from a personal phone shows every patient's number to everyone else on it.
A broadcast sends each patient their own text, and replies come back privately. Birth centers use the same approach for closures and class changes. See how birth centers send closures and class reminders.
Keep closure texts informational
A closure notice is information, so keep it that way. The CTIA Messaging Principles note that adding a call to action like a coupon code to an informational text "may place the message in the promotional category" (CTIA Messaging Principles, 2023). Promotional texts need prior express written consent under the FCC's TCPA rule (47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2)). Save the "book now and save" message for another day.
What to say for each kind of closure
Weather: say you're closed today, that appointments will be rescheduled, how to reach you, and when you'll update them. If you might reopen later in the day, say you'll text again.
Holiday: give the closed dates, the reopening time and any changed hours around the holiday. Mention how to reach the on-call provider or after-hours line if you have one.
Emergency, such as a power, water or IT outage: say you're closed, that it isn't safe or possible to see patients, and where to go. For anything urgent, point to urgent care or 911.
Provider out: this one affects specific patients, so send it only to those patients. Use a CSV of the affected appointments with columns like {{appt_time}} and {{provider}}, and send it as a Secure text with link, since an appointment detail can be PHI.
When to send: now or scheduled
Send now for weather and emergency closures, as soon as you decide. Patients are deciding whether to leave the house. Send to that day's patients first, then a second broadcast to everyone else if it matters to them.
Schedule holiday notices. A good pattern is one text three to five days before the closure, sent between 9am and 8pm. You can set the date, time and time zone in the Send dialog. If your patients span time zones, send one broadcast per zone so each lands at a sensible local time.
Federal rules bar telephone solicitations before 8am or after 9pm in the recipient's local time (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1)). A closure notice isn't a solicitation, but the same window is a good courtesy. For patients booked before 9am on a weather morning, decide as a practice whether an earlier text or a phone call is the better way to reach them. See texting patients after hours.
Where to point patients
Every closure text should answer "what do I do instead". Give the main number, the after-hours or on-call line, an open location if you have more than one, a telehealth option if you offer it, and the reopening time. For a multi-location practice, a {{location}} column lets each patient see their own office.
Replies come back as private conversations in your team inbox. Plan who answers them on a closure day, especially if the office itself is closed.
How to send it in BloomText
Open Broadcast in the web app sidebar and create a broadcast. In Details, choose Insecure text for a general closure, or Secure text with link for messages about a specific patient's appointment. See create a broadcast.
In Recipients, add patients from your directory or upload a CSV of the day's appointments from your EHR. In Message, add {{first_name | there}} and any CSV variables. Then send now or schedule it. See send and track.
Broadcasts need the Patient SMS Add-on and membership in a team with an assigned phone number, and BloomText verifies new accounts before their first broadcast. Get verified before storm season, not on the morning of the first snow.
Sample office closure texts for patients
These are informational, with no offers. Each names the clinic, says when you reopen and where to go, and ends with opt-out wording.
Weather closure, send now
Insecure text: can't contain PHI
Holiday hours, scheduled
Insecure text: can't contain PHI
Emergency closure, other location open
Insecure text: can't contain PHI
{{location}} comes from a CSV column.
Provider out, affected patients only
Secure text with link: can contain PHI
Built from a CSV of the affected appointments.
Reopening update
Insecure text: can't contain PHI
Frequently Asked Questions
- That you're closed, when you'll reopen, and where to go meanwhile: your phone line, after-hours line, an open location, telehealth if you offer it, or 911 for emergencies. Name the clinic so patients know who it's from.
- Right away. Patients are deciding whether to travel. Schedule holiday notices instead, three to five days ahead, between 9am and 8pm in the patient's time zone.
- Keep it out. Carrier guidance says a coupon or call to action can make an informational text promotional, and promotional texts call for prior express written consent. Send promotions separately, to patients who agreed to them.
- Export that provider's appointments for the day from your EHR as a CSV, upload it as the recipient list, and send a Secure text with link that uses columns like {{appt_time}}. Appointment details can be PHI, so they don't belong in an Insecure text.
- Each broadcast is scheduled in one time zone, which you can change in the Send dialog. Split patients by time zone and schedule one broadcast for each.
- No. Numbers on your organization's undeliverable list, including patients who replied STOP, aren't texted by any broadcast. In an Insecure broadcast they show as Failed with the reason. Reach them by phone if the closure affects their appointment. A STOP typed inside a Secure text thread arrives as an ordinary reply, so mark that patient opted out from their page in Directory.
What should an office closure text say?
Should we send a weather closure text right away or schedule it?
Can a closure text include a promotion?
How do we text only the patients affected by a provider being out?
Our patients are in more than one time zone. How do we schedule?
Do patients who opted out still get closure texts?
Sources
Last verified October 15, 2026.
