As organizations continue to expand their care modeling, customized patient communication is a critical part of their practice management workflows. Through the Enable_Business_Lines constance configuration, customers are able to customize their patient outreach communication, the logo displayed on the patient web portal, the area code from which SMS messages are sent, and the subject line of email communication. This feature empowers organizations to further configure their workflows to better fit their business needs.
Out of the box functionality restricts communication, associated logos, and phone number outreach to the organization settings. This means that all patients will see the same communication for point of contact verification and appointment reminders. Business line configuration allows customers to decouple organization settings from the preferred communication language and cadence to certain patients. Some example use cases include:
Creating Business Lines based on payer contracts requiring specific outreach language to patients based upon their associated insurance coverage
Selecting logos for patient web portal engagement based upon the different logos and name identification of each practice location
Denoting the area code of SMS outreach to patients based on their address to remove confusion and provide a more local experience
Ensuring outreach business name matching if each state subsidiary of an organization has different business names from the larger organization name
This functionality does not replace the default organization communication, logos, or corporate number that are provided at the creation of an instance.
A patient does not need to be associated to a business line. Patients without a business line association will receive the communication setup within the Organization settings.
As a default, the business line functionality is disabled within all instances. In order to enable, an administrator will need to navigate to the Constance Configuration page within Settings. Once the Enable_Business_Lines Constance Configuration has been enabled, users will see a Business Line field on all patient profiles within the Preferences section. If no business lines have been activated, this dropdown will be blank. As business lines are created and activated, they will automatically appear within the Business Line dropdown on the patient profile.
Once the Enable_Business_Lines Constance Configuration has been set to True, Administrators will be able to create as many business lines as are needed by their organizations. Within the Settings page, there will now be a new page titled: Business Lines. Within this settings page, Administrators are able to create new business lines by clicking on the ADD BUSINESS LINES + button at the top right of the page.
When creating a new business line, the following information is required:
Name: This name must be unique and will appear in the dropdown of the patient profile. This information can be updated at any time.
Logo: This logo will be used within the web portal for patients to review direct messages, labs, make payments, and access additional information. Upload a file of type: jpeg, png, jpg and size less than 5.0 MB. This logo can be updated at any time.
Subdomain: This information will be used to create the subdomain URLs that are sent to patients in order to access the web portal (unique URL). Once set this field cannot be updated.
Administrators will also have the option to include the following information:
Description: Input of any relevant details for defining or describing the purpose of each specific business line. This information will be internal and not represented in any communication to patients. This information can be updated at any time.
Active: By default, when creating a new business line, this checkbox will be marked True. A business line can be marked active or inactive at any time by checking or unchecking this box. If a business line is marked as inactive, that business line will not appear on the Business Line dropdown within the patient’s profile.
Area code: This information will be used to generate a phone number through Twilio, our third party communication tool, that will be used for patient SMS communication. Administrators are able to input any area code they want associated with each specific business line. If the area code is not available, the page will not save and a new area code can be entered. In most cases, area codes are available and will generate a number that can be found within the Business Line Setting section of the page once the page is saved. That generated number will contain the inputted area code.
If no area code is entered at the creation of the business line, Twilio will automatically generate a phone number that will be associated with the business line.
Once a phone number has been associated with a business line during the creation of the business line, it cannot be changed or removed. It is important that the Administrator input a desired area code at the creation of the business line if they want that business line to have a specific area code, or else a new business line will need to be created.
Business Line Settings: Within this section of the page, Administrators are able to add the desired communication information. Each business line settings page provides further details of what communication can be added, the variables that can be inputted (similar to letter template variables), and the constraints to some of the values that can be added. To add a new communication, simply click on the button within this section. Information within the body of the communication can be updated at any time.
Please note that any communication will need to be entered as one line with quotes (" ") at the beginning and end of the message template.
Messages that can be created include:
contactPointVerificationMessage (required - limited to 1600 characters)
Ex. "Verify your %s to receive secure communications about your healthcare from Canvas Family Practice. %s"
contactPointVerificationEmailSubject (required)
Ex. "Verify your Canvas Family Practice email address" limited to 1600 characters.
appointmentReminderCustomization (required - limited to 1600 characters)
Ex. "Have you been tested for COVID-19 in the past 10 days?"
appointmentReminders (required - limited to 1600 characters)
Ex. {"daysAhead": 4, "hourOfDay": 13
When creating a new Business line setting, {} will automatically appear within the value box. Please ensure to remove these brackets prior to entering the desired communication in order to save changes.
The following variables are available for use:
{{PATIENT_FULL_NAME}} : patient full name (Rebecca Jane MacIntyre)
{{PATIENT_PREFERRED_NAME}} : patient preferred name (Richard)
{{PATIENT_FIRST_NAME}} : patient first name (Rebecca)
{{PATIENT_MIDDLE_NAME}} : patient middle name (Jane)
{{PATIENT_LAST_NAME}} : patient last name (MacIntyre)
{{CURRENT_DATE_CARDINAL}} : current date cardinal (April 22, 2019)
The following variables are ONLY for Appointment Reminders:
{{PROVIDER_CREDENTIALED_NAME}} : provider credentialed name (Steven Magee MD)
{{ORGANIZATION_NAME}} : organization name (Canvas Family Practice)
{{PRACTICE_NAME}} : practice name (Canvas Family Practice San Francisco)
{{PRACTICE_ADDRESS_SINGLE}} : practice address on a single line = 2037 Irving St Ste 228 San Francisco, CA 94122
{{PRACTICE_PHONE}} : practice phone ((800) 370-1416)
Once a page is ready to be saved, updated, or deleted, Administrators can make these changes at the bottom of the page through the following options:
Once Business Lines have been created and the Enable_Business_Lines constance configuration is set to True, users will see the Business Line dropdown field within the Preferences section of each patient’s profile. The values within this dropdown will be those Business Lines marked Active. Users are able to add, remove, or update business lines within the patient profile at any time.
By default, no business line will be associated to a patient until selected by a user.
Once a patient has been associated to a business line, the specific customized information per business line will be reflected in the corresponding communication sent out moving forward. If no business line is associated with the patient, the corresponding communication will be based on Organization settings. Of note, feel free to test out communication within a test patient per business line to ensure everything matches the desired logos, messages, and phone number.
Within a patient's profile, if a patient has opted-out of receiving SMS communication, an unsubscribed label will appear.
This label ensures Canvas users are able to easily see if patiens have been opted-out from receiving SMS communication. Patients are able to opt-out by responding to the corresponding phone number, associated with an instance, via SMS with any of the following keywords:
STOP
STOPALL
UNSUBSCRIBE
CANCEL
END
QUIT
Once a patient has opted-out and the unsubscribed label has been automatically added next to the associated number, if the patient only has the opted-out number within their profile, users will not be able to message patients and this information will be displayed next to Messages on the patient's new note dropdown.
If a patient has both the opted-out number and an email address, users can only send messages to the patient via the email address. This information will be seen at the bottom of the message note.
In order to opt a patient back into receiving SMS messages, because of regulatory restrictions, only the patient can opt-in back to receiving messages via a response from the associated phone number they had opted-out from. To determine that phone number, review which organization phone number sends out messages to patients. A patient can opt-in by responding with any of the following keywords:
START
YES
UNSTOP
Once a patient opts-in, they will receive a confirmation text “this phone can receive text messages” and within the patient profile the number will now include the verified label.
If a business line is created, does it have to have a different subdomain and phone number than the instance organization?
A subdomain is required to be entered when created a new Business Line and a phone number will be generated with or without an inputted area code by the Administrator. This information is needed in order to Save a new Business Line.
What happens is a business line has NO business line settings?
If a business line has no business line settings, it does revert to the organization communications with the business lines corresponding contact points.