The Patient Channel contains all messages that have ever been sent to or from the patient, all Internal Mentions added to that Patient Channel, and Event Messages related to patient updates.

Key actions you can take in the Patient Channel include:

• Communicating with patients through Manual Messages, which involves:
  • Secure and unsecured messaging
  • Sending attachments and Forms
  • Using Smart Phrases and Quick Responses
• Managing appointment confirmations
• Updating the Channel Status
• Creating Internal Mentions

Patient Channel Introduction

Patient Channel Overview

Open the Patient Channel by selecting the patient from any of the inbox views. 

Channel Messages

The conversation history is composed of various inbound and outbound messages. Each message contains a timestamp and sender name. You will also notice that the Patient Channel categorizes messages with clear date headers that update as you scroll through the Patient Channel. 

Outbound Messages

Messages sent from Artera to the patient appear on the right side of the Patient Channel. These messages are sent from Artera-Bot, you, or another user in the Practice.

About Artera-Bot

Any automated messages sent from Artera are marked as sent from Artera-Bot to help you distinguish how the message was sent. Automated messages include:

• Reminders for a specific appointment, Referral, or Recall

• Messages after the appointment occurred (e.g. a thank-you message sent a few hours after the patient was seen)

• Campaign messages

• After-Hours and Holiday Hours Out of Office messages that are sent in reply to a patient when the Practice is not open

Inbound Messages

Inbound messages from the patient appear on the left-hand side of the Patient's Channel. The lock icon indicates if the message was sent securely or unsecured.

Event Messages

Event Messages indicate an action has occurred within the Patient Channel. These messages are not sent to patients and appear in the center of the Patient Channel. The Event Message is timestamped and indicates who took the action, whether it was the patient, an Artera user, or a live update interfaced from the Electronic Medical Record (EMR).

Common Event Messages include:

• A patient took action on an appointment

• Demographic information changed

• Patient Channel marked as opened, closed, or pending 

• Multiple Patients Same Phone Verification Confirmation

• Message delivery failure

• Conversation Flows activity

Click here to learn more about Event Messages. 

Internal Mentions 

Internal Mentions allow you to tag a user or User Group directly within a Patient Channel. These messages are not sent to patients and will appear in red in the Patient Channel. An Internal Mention will create an alert for the tagged user(s) to follow up on. A flashing purple dot within a Patient's Channel indicates an Internal Mention still needs to be addressed.

Click here to learn more about Internal Mentions.

Switching Phone Lines

Use the Patient’s Conversations drop-down to view the Patient Channel for other lines in your Practice. 

Practices often use different lines for varying purposes. For example, your Practice may use one line for scheduling and another for billing. A single Practice can carry on multiple conversations with the same patient at once because each number (line) is unique. This feature allows you to keep the content separate, organized, and secure. For instance, a user with permissions for the main scheduling line does not need to see any details on the Practice's billing line. 

There can be separate conversations occurring with the same patient across different lines in the Practice. The status of each conversation can be different as each line has a separate Patient Channel for the patient. Read more about Channel Statuses here.

Enterprise and Practice Manager users have access to all lines for a given Practice. When creating a Staff User, you can determine which line(s) the user can use to send messages.  

Manually Update Channel Status

When in a Patient Channel, use the Channel Status menu to manually select a different Channel Status.