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Communications is where your practice gets a dedicated number, watches its message credit balance, and turns on the channels you use to reach clients — texts, calls, fax and email. You never type in a provider’s numbers or connection details here: the platform buys and registers your number for you, and the database — not this form — is what proves a number belongs to your practice.

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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 are 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 your sending address

In Email, enter your Send from (verified address) — an address on your own domain that has been verified. Add a Reply-to if replies should reach a different inbox, such as your front desk.
4

Watch your 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 you never run dry mid-month.

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Faxing a document

Fax is not a switch you turn on — 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 a fax, 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 you confirm. Faxes your practice receives land in the Fax Inbox, reachable from this tab or from the sidebar. Nothing is matched to a client 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 client’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 anything already written to use it — reminders, confirmations, automated messages — starts actually going out over it, 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. 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 — you should see your number listed as “Registered and active” (a fresh number briefly shows a provisioning status first). A channel: save, leave the tab, and come back — the switches you set should have persisted. Then trigger something real: book a test appointment for yourself and confirm the confirmation arrives at the right address or number. Fax: send a document to a real fax number you control, or check the Fax Inbox after asking someone to fax your practice’s number.

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Common issues

Communications starts on the Essential plan: “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.
An accountant can reach settings but not this tab’s controls. Ask an owner or manager to make the change.
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 your practice’s currency yet, that currency isn’t priced yet (today: US and Canada only) — reminders still send by email in the meantime.
Confirm your practice 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 your practice’s number — nothing is seeded or simulated. Once a fax arrives, it appears here for filing.
Google and Outlook mailbox sending is not available yet. Email sends from your Send from (verified address) in the meantime.
Set Reply-to (optional) to a monitored inbox. Without it, replies go back to the verified sending address.
This tab opens the channel; each client’s own notification preferences decide whether they are contacted on it. Check the client’s record, and the appointment’s own notification setting.