Messages
The Messages tab is a hub of threads. Three kinds live side by side, each with its own identity, and each thread opens into the same conversation view.
Thread kinds
The clinic front desk
One thread per connected clinic. With a single clinic connected it is simply “The clinic”; once there is more than one, each thread is named for its clinic.
This is the non-urgent channel to the clinic’s staff — the same conversation staff see and answer from the CMS’s Clinic Messaging screen. Read the existing thread before adding to it, and keep each message to one request with enough context (an appointment or visit date) for staff to act on it.
Staff identity is deliberately not exposed on the patient’s side of the thread.
Care-team threads
One thread per care program the patient is enrolled in, talking to that program’s agent. Threads are named by the program itself — the name staff gave it — rather than by an agent persona.
A care-team thread may contain individual check-in conversations (encounters) reached from the thread.
Guided care sessions
One thread per guided care session the patient has consented to, carrying the matching agent’s name and icon for its kind.
A session thread that has ended is read-only and shows a badge on the hub instead of inviting more reading. In place of the composer it offers either:
- a link to the session’s summary, when the session completed; or
- a Start a new session form for the same kind, with the same consent copy shown before the first one started, when the session was cancelled or swept away as abandoned.
An abandoned session writes no summary.
Escalations
A red flag raised by Ask Medbot or inside a guided session lands in the clinic front-desk thread. With several clinics connected, it is sent to every one of them rather than guessing which should see it.
What Messages is not
Messaging the clinic is for non-urgent contact. The portal points patients to local emergency services or to the clinic directly for anything urgent.