Cases and Provider Messaging

Instead of calling, emailing or faxing a provider's office, you can send messages to the provider's staff directly in Care Connect. Each conversation is saved to a case, a single record of your patient's care, so your team can see what you asked, what the provider answered and what is still open.

Who Can Use Cases

Everyone at your company who uses Care Connect has access to cases by default. You'll find them under the Cases tab.

To turn off access for someone at your company, please contact Customer Operations.

How Cases Work

• A case covers one patient. It can include several procedures, providers and facilities, so the patient's whole journey stays in one place.
• Inside a case, each facility you talk to has its own message thread. In Care Connect, threads are labeled Message.
• Each thread has a status that shows whose turn it is to reply.

Messaging Provider Staff

You can start a conversation from a voucher or from an offer. You'll see the Message Provider Staff button for facilities that have messaging enabled.

From a Voucher

1. Click the Vouchers tab, then find the voucher and expand it.
2. Click Message Provider Staff.
3. Under Case, choose one of the patient's open cases, or choose Create new case.
   • For a new case, enter a Case name and a Subject.
   • For an existing case, choose a Message thread: an open thread with this facility, or New thread. A new thread needs a Subject.
4. Type Your Message and click Send Message.

The subject starts out as Question about order number #…. You can change it before you send, or later by clicking the pencil icon next to the subject on the thread. You can rename the case the same way from the case page.

From an Offer

1. On the offer, click Message Provider Staff.
2. Under Patient, search for the patient by name or email. If they are new, click Create a New Patient Profile and enter their details. If a patient with those details may already exist, you can choose Use this patient to avoid creating a duplicate profile.
3. Choose the case and thread and write your message, as you would from a voucher. The case name and subject start out as the procedure name.
4. Click Send Message.

Asking About Another Procedure

One thread can cover more than one procedure. If you have a question about another procedure for the same patient at the same facility, you have the option to add it to the existing thread or start a new one. The thread's Message Details lists every procedure it covers.

Viewing Your Cases

Click the Cases tab. A number on the tab shows how many cases have unread messages, and your home page shows the same count under My Unread Cases.

Each row is one case, showing its Status, Case name, Procedure, Patient, Facility, Provider, Last Activity and who is Assigned. A dot marks a case with unread messages. You can:

• Search by subject, patient or procedure name.
• Filter by Status, or by who is Assigned.
• Check My messages to see only the cases assigned to you.
• Filter by Company, if you work with more than one company.

Open a case to see each of its threads and their status. The Case Details panel on the right lists the case's facilities, providers and procedures, its status and who is assigned. Below it are the patient's vouchers and an Attachments panel that collects the files shared on all of the case's threads in one place.

You can also find a patient's cases from the Patients tab.

Replying and Sharing Files

Open a thread to read the conversation. Type your reply in the box at the bottom and click Send. Pressing Enter also sends, and Shift+Enter starts a new line.

To share a file, use the Attachments panel on the right of the thread:

1. Click Upload, then Choose file.
2. Optionally, change the File name, add a Tag (such as Medical Record, Insurance or Imaging) and add a Description.
3. Click Upload.

You can upload one file at a time, up to 10 MB each, in these formats: PDF, JPG, PNG, DOCX, XLSX, CSV or TXT. The provider's staff can see every file on their thread. Anyone who can see a file can also remove it from the thread, and a removed file can't be recovered.

The Attachments panel on the case page shows the files from all of the case's threads. It's view-only, so to upload or remove a file, open the thread it belongs to.

Message Status

The status changes on its own. When the provider replies, the thread moves to In Progress. When you reply, it moves back to Pending Response.

Assigning a Case

Assigning a case lets the rest of your team know who owns it. When you start a case, you're assigned to it automatically. Under Assigned To in the Case Details panel:

• Click Assign to me to take it on.
• Click + Add people to bring in teammates, select them, and click Assign.
• Click the × next to a name to remove that person.

Only the navigator assigned to a case can change its status, rename it or change a thread's subject.

When No One Is Assigned

A case no one is assigned to shows Unassigned. It stays in your Cases tab, and anyone at your company can still read and reply to it. Replying doesn't assign it to you.

Until someone is assigned, everyone at your company gets an email each time the provider replies. Once someone is assigned, only the people assigned to it get those emails.

Resolving and Reopening

If you're assigned to the case, you can change a thread's status from its Status menu:

• Resolve a thread when the question is answered. Choose Resolved.
• Reopen a thread to continue the conversation. Choose In Progress.
• Set a thread back to Pending Response when you're waiting on the provider again, for example after a phone call.

To resolve the whole case, change the status in the Case Details panel. If any thread is still open, Care Connect asks you to confirm, because resolving the case resolves every open thread too.

A case resolves on its own when all of its threads are resolved, and it reopens when you reopen one of its threads. You can't add a new message to a resolved case, so reopen it first or start a new case.

Email Notifications

When the provider replies, you get an email if you're assigned to the case. If no one is assigned yet, everyone at your company gets the email.

To protect patient privacy, notification emails do not include the patient's name or the content of the message. Each email identifies the sender and includes a link to the message, which you can view after signing in to Care Connect.

Troubleshooting

• You don't see the Cases tab. Your account doesn't have access to cases. Please contact Customer Operations.
• You don't see Message Provider Staff. The facility may not have messaging enabled yet, or the voucher may be archived. Please contact Customer Operations.
• You can't change a status, rename a case or edit a subject. Only the navigator assigned to the case can. Ask them, or have the case assigned to you.
• You can't reply to a thread. It's resolved. Reopen it to reply.
• A file won't upload. Check that it's one of the accepted formats and no larger than 10 MB.

Questions? Contact your account manager or the Customer Operations team at customeroperations@tendo.com or 844-256-7696, Monday–Friday from 7am to 5pm CT.