SMS Text Messaging / Brands / Campaigns

Once upon a time, text messaging was a relatively straightforward process. Then came SPAM. People complained. And the federal government changed the law. In response, major U.S. carriers — like AT&T & Verizon — created a new entity: The Campaign Registry (TCR).

TCR now regulates text messaging nationwide. Think of TCR as both a filter & gatekeeper. In order to ensure messages from your business are delivered to your patients, there are a few essentials to understand.

The process itself is akin to applying for a Passport, driver’s license, or other form of ID. Without proper ID, you face various restrictions — to driving, to travel, etc.

First we must register your Brand. Simply put, your brand is your legal business name — which must match your Employer Identification Number (EIN). Sounds simple? About 50% of you enter this information incorrectly during the process and TCR rejects your Brand application. Then, we must proceed through a lengthy process manually, incurring extra fees in the process. The document we subsequently require to both verify your brand & prove its authenticity is the CP 575 EIN letter provided to you by the IRS when you formed your business entity. If you don’t have this form, request an EIN Verification Letter (147-C) directly from the IRS. We can’t proceed without it. Here, again, some of you provide other forms. Any other form is unacceptable to TCR! Finally, TCR requires that you have a website. If you do not have a dedicated website, they’ll accept a Facebook page for your business. Your website must mention the brand name and include the name of the responsible party (e.g. Adam Smith) — which is generally the name of the owner/physician. Most of this process (e.g. EIN verification) is handled autonomously by computers. However, humans will check your website to ensure there’s a match. So, for example, if there’s a typo in the URL you provide, your website will be rejected. They won’t Google you in an effort to fix the issue!

Once your brand is successfully registered, we must now register a Campaign. Basically, this should be a simple process that describes the types of messages you will send to patients & discusses how you inform patients of the rules (e.g. how to opt-out of receiving messages from you). First & foremost, understand that TCR doesn’t care about HIPAA. TCR doesn’t care that your website is generally a convenience for your patients — and not a portal that collects information. They expect your website to fulfill various legal requirements — which [among other things] must be reflected in your Privacy Policy & Terms of Service.

TCR allows you (as ECLIPSE users) to piggyback on our privacy policies & terms — which makes some aspects of this easier.

• You’re already bound by HIPAA.
• You’re using our platform — so we can enforce rules to some extent (e.g. no discussing Cannabis products).
• We understand that the concept of hiring an attorney to create these online legal documents & then adding them to your website can be daunting.

Humans at TCR check all this information for accuracy. There are myriad startup & ongoing monthly fees associated with each aspect of this, including brand creation, campaign creation, your assigned phone #, etc. Manual resubmisson is time-consuming. Here’s a typical notice we see on your Twilio account after a campaign is submitted:

This US A2P Campaign is under review, and may take several weeks to complete. The Twilio team will reach out to you via email if there’s anything wrong with your Campaign. Otherwise, you may check back on this Campaign’s registration status in a couple of days. Please note that you will not be able to send A2P traffic on this Campaign until it has been successfully verified and registered.

We pay high monthly fees to “FastTrack” your campaign — which should generally be available to use before 3 business days have passed following your application date. However, any information from you that doesn’t meet TCR’s criteria lengthens the entire process — which may include 1-on-1 meetings on your behalf. (Yes! Really!) Please bear that in mind as you proceed through the process. Currently, we don’t charge additional fees for this. So, it helps everyone involved if you take care to carefully check your business name, EIN#, website, and the information on that website before providing it to us. Ultimately this also makes the process smoother for you and helps get your campaign approved in a more timely fashion!

Finally, please understand that these rules & regulations have been evolving almost constantly over the past several years. And sometimes, it’s your application that gets caught up in a new process that we must navigate before we can move forward and get it approved.