Definition
TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act)
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is the US federal law that regulates automated and prerecorded calls and text messages. It governs consent, calling hours, and honoring opt-out (do-not-call) requests. Healthcare messages have specific allowances, but any automated patient outreach must respect consent and process opt-outs on every attempt.
Definition
What the TCPA is
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is the federal statute, enforced by the FCC, that governs automated calls, prerecorded messages, and texts to consumers. It sets rules on prior consent, permissible calling hours, identification, and, critically, the obligation to honor a recipient's request to stop.
Healthcare has particular treatment under the TCPA: certain treatment-related and appointment messages are given allowances distinct from marketing, but the protections still apply, and consent and opt-out obligations remain. Marketing-style outreach faces a higher consent bar than operational, care-related messages.
The practical requirement is disciplined opt-out handling and clean consent state. Rivvi honors TCPA opt-out on every outreach path, voice and text, and stops contacting a patient the moment they opt out, so practices can run outbound programs at volume without crossing the line.
TCPA, answered
- Does the TCPA apply to appointment reminders?
- It applies, but healthcare messages such as appointment reminders and other treatment-related communications receive specific allowances under the TCPA that differ from marketing calls. Consent and opt-out obligations still hold, so patients who ask to stop must be removed from that outreach immediately.
- What does honoring TCPA opt-out mean?
- It means that when a patient replies STOP to a text or asks not to be called, they are promptly removed from further automated outreach on that channel and not contacted again. Reliable opt-out processing is central to TCPA compliance and is a common source of penalties when done poorly.
- How does Rivvi handle TCPA compliance?
- Rivvi honors opt-out on every outreach path, voice and text, and stops contacting a patient as soon as they opt out. Outbound programs run inside these rules, so practices, pharmacies, and brokers can reach patients at scale without compromising consent handling.