Create texting teams and manage patient messages

What are texting teams?

Creating texting teams lets you assign text conversations with patients to a specific group of people — such as clinical, front desk, and billing — instead of leaving everything in one shared inbox. It works for both secure messages and standard two-way SMS conversations. Assigning conversations keeps staff focused on what they're responsible for and gives a whole group visibility into a conversation, rather than it sitting with just one person. Below, you'll find steps for creating or editing teams, setting your default team, and assigning and reassigning conversations.

Create or edit a team

Users with Manager or Admin permissions can edit teams.

1. Click Settings in the top blue menu bar.

2. In the secondary menu bar under Practice Settings, click Teams.

3. To change a team's members, click Edit and select or deselect users.

Set your default "reply-to" team

Before sending messages, set your default team in your NextPatient profile. Any outgoing messages you send will be linked to that team — so if a patient replies, the alert shows up in the Mine tab for everyone on your team.

To set (or change) your default team at any time, click Profile next to your name in the top right corner and choose a default team from the dropdown. This ensures future messages you send are automatically tied to that team's inbox.

View a team's conversations

In the Texting tab, use the team dropdown to switch between viewing everyone's conversations at your location, just the ones you started, or the ones assigned to a specific team.

Assign or reassign a conversation to a team

After a message is sent, you can change who it's assigned to. To assign the whole team instead of just yourself, click Edit next to the team name and select a team — any patient replies will then flow into that team's inbox instead of just one person's.

FAQs

If I assign a message to a team, does that hide it from everyone else?

No. Assigning a conversation to a team doesn't restrict who can see it. All messages are always visible under the All tab, and you can check on another team's work list at any time by using the team dropdown.

Can teams be limited to a specific location?

No. Teams span all of your practice's locations — there's currently no way to restrict a team to just one location, even if every member of that team happens to work at the same site.

Is there an out-of-office or forwarding option so that a message doesn't get stuck with one person?

There's no dedicated out-of-office or forwarding function. Instead, use teams to assign conversations to a group of people rather than a single person — that way, if a patient replies, everyone on the team has visibility into it instead of the message sitting unseen with whoever it was originally assigned to. Note that NextPatient doesn't currently assign messages by individual providers.

Is there an audit log showing who assigned a conversation to a team or person?

Not currently. You can see who a conversation is currently assigned to, but there's no history of prior assignment changes at this time.