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Communications is where the hospital gets a dedicated number, watches its message credit balance, and turns on the channels agents and staff reach patients over — texts, calls, fax and email. Nobody types a provider’s numbers or connection details here: the platform buys and registers the number, and the database — not this form — is what proves a number belongs to this hospital.

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What this tab controls

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Set it up

1

Get a number

In Your number, select Get a number. You’re taken to checkout for the recurring number fee plus a one-time registration fee. Once payment is confirmed, you land back on this tab and the number appears.
2

Turn on the channels you use

In Channels, switch on SMS, Voice and/or Email. Fax needs no switch — see Faxing below.
3

Set the email address

Put a verified hospital address in Send from. Use Reply-to when replies should reach a monitored inbox rather than the sending address — a front-desk mailbox rather than a no-reply.
4

Watch the credit balance

Texts, calls and fax pages all draw from one balance in Communication credits. Buy a pack, or turn on Auto top-up so it never runs dry mid-month.

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Faxing a document

Fax is not a switch — it is gated by having a number and by the Send Fax permission (owners and managers always have it; anyone else needs it granted in Settings → Team → Permissions). To send one, open any signed document — a clinical note, a lab or radiology report, an invoice, or a signed patient document — and choose Send by fax. You’ll see the page count and credit cost before confirming. Faxes the hospital receives land in the Fax Inbox, reachable from this tab or from the sidebar. Nothing is matched to a patient automatically — a fax tells you who sent it, never who it’s about — so a person reviews each one, opens it to see what it says, and either files it into a patient’s documents or marks it junk. An unfiled fax is removed automatically 30 days after it arrives, and the inbox flags anything close to that date.

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What changes once you save

Turning on a channel means an agent step or automated message that already sends over it starts actually reaching patients — from the number and address on this tab. Until a channel is on, whatever depends on it stays silent rather than failing: no error appears, the message simply never leaves. A published agent whose step sends a text simply cannot when SMS is off. Two things worth knowing. This tab governs communications the hospital sends — including agents — not the hospital’s own internal notification emails; appointment reminders, invoice notices and staff alerts follow their own preference switches, not these. And patient contact preferences still apply on top: a channel being enabled here never overrides a patient who has opted out. Getting a number is a real, recurring charge from the moment checkout confirms — releasing it stops that charge immediately. Running out of communication credits does not fail silently either: sends fall back to email so nothing is ever lost, just delivered a different way.

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Check it worked

Getting a number: after checkout, return to this tab — the number should read “Registered and active” (a fresh number briefly shows a provisioning status first). A channel: save, reload the tab — the switches should be as you left them. Run one agent or automated message on a channel you enabled, to a colleague rather than a patient, and confirm it arrives from the number or address you configured. Fax: send a document to a real fax number you control, or check the Fax Inbox after asking someone to fax the hospital’s number.

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Common issues

“Get a number for texts and calls, and let your clinic send appointment reminders and messages. Available on any paid plan.” See Change your plan.
Accountants can open settings but not this tab’s controls.
Select it again — it should open a payment page for the number’s monthly fee and one-time registration fee. If it says numbers aren’t available for the hospital’s currency yet, that currency isn’t priced yet (today: US and Canada only) — reminders still send by email in the meantime.
Confirm the hospital has a number in Your number — a channel switch with no number behind it has nowhere to send from.
That’s expected until someone actually faxes the hospital’s number — nothing is seeded or simulated. Once a fax arrives, it appears here for filing.
Set Reply-to to a monitored address. It overrides the sending address for replies only.
Mailbox sending is not available yet. Agents send from the verified address above in the meantime.
Ordinary hospital notifications are governed by the notification preferences, not by these channels. Change them there.