A recent change to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has practices wondering whether they can make automated appointment reminder phone calls, or automated collection calls.\u00a0 Both have become common practice in recent years.<\/p>\n
The TCPA, at 7 U.S.C. \u00a7227, states:<\/p>\n
(b) Restrictions on use of automated telephone equipment<\/p>\n
(1)\u00a0It shall be unlawful for any person\u00a0within the United States, or any person outside the United States if the recipient is within the United States–<\/p>\n
(A)\u00a0to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system\u00a0or an artificial or prerecorded voice–<\/p>\n
(i) to any emergency telephone line;<\/p>\n
(ii) to the telephone line of any guest room or patient room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home, or similar establishment; or<\/p>\n
(iii)\u00a0to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call.<\/p>\n
In essence, this means that you may not make automated calls to a cell phone without \u201cprior express consent\u201d from the customer (patient).\u00a0 There is some debate as to what constitutes \u201cprior express consent.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information on establishing prior consent, and complying with TCPA requirements, refer to the article in the October 2015 issue of the American Practice Advisor<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A recent change to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has practices wondering whether they can make automated appointment reminder phone calls, or automated collection calls.\u00a0 Both have become common practice in recent years. The TCPA, at 7 U.S.C. \u00a7227, states: (b) Restrictions on use of automated telephone equipment (1)\u00a0It shall be unlawful for any… Continue reading