A colleague should be able to pick up a patient conversation without having to ask what happened. They need the original message, the patient's reply, the relevant appointment details, and a record of what the team has already done.
Set up that context alongside the messaging integration. It makes covering a shift or handing a request to another team much easier.
Put the conversation beside the patient record
Use message identifiers to connect a reply to the conversation it belongs to. Keep the appointment or referral reference in your application so staff can open the relevant record from there.
Show the history that helps someone answer: what was sent, what the patient asked, and whether another person is already handling it. Restrict access to the staff who need it, including access to attachments. Keep patient content out of general analytics and debugging logs.
Pinnacle sends a MESSAGE.RECEIVED event to your application when someone replies. The receiving guide covers webhook setup. A webhook is the event Pinnacle sends to your server when something happens, such as a patient replying or a delivery status changing.
Receive the reply
Keep it with the conversation and relevant appointment.
Route it to the right team
Send scheduling requests to staff and clinical questions to the care team’s approved review process.
Confirm the transfer
Check that the next team has accepted the request.
Finish the request
Record what was done and keep waiting requests visible.
Decide who answers each kind of request
Scheduling staff can handle appointment changes. Billing questions need to reach the people who can resolve them. Clinical or unclear questions should follow the organization's approved care-team review process.
Agree on backup coverage before launch. People change shifts and take leave; a request shouldn't depend on the person who happened to open it first. Tell patients when the line is monitored and when they can expect a response. A line without urgent-care coverage shouldn't imply otherwise.
An automatic acknowledgment can confirm that a message arrived. Keep it separate from the record of a staff response so you can see which patients are still waiting.
Make it clear when the work is finished
A small queue can distinguish new requests, assigned work, conversations waiting on an answer, and completed requests. Keep the next action and the person responsible visible.
When another team takes over, confirm they've accepted the request. Leave enough detail for them to continue without asking the patient to repeat the conversation.
Your integration also needs to handle repeated event deliveries. Use the event or message identifier to avoid creating a second staff task for a retry. Keep a genuine second message from the patient, which may contain the answer staff were waiting for.
Connect it to the tools your team uses
We can help bring Pinnacle's incoming messages into your staff tools and connect them to the relevant records. The queue, assignments, and scheduling actions are parts of that integration to agree with your team.
For patient information, begin with the BAA and healthcare onboarding. Then work through a few complete conversations, including one that needs another department and one that arrives outside office hours.
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