When reviewing a request in the Inbox, you can send a message directly to the patient as part of processing the request. This lets you ask for more information, provide guidance, or follow up — all without leaving the episode view.
Open the episode you want to respond to. Within the episode detail view, select the Send message action. This opens the message builder, where you can compose your message and choose how to deliver it — via SMS, email, or both, depending on the patient's contact details on file.
To direct the patient to book an appointment, select the booking link option within the message builder. A link builder will open where you can choose the appointment type you want to offer. Appointment types are listed in alphabetical order to make it easier to find the right one.
When adding a booking link, you'll also be asked to set the Inbox assignee for the resulting Episode — this is who gets notified when the patient confirms their booking. You can assign it to yourself, another admin, or a team. Once the patient books, a new linked episode appears in the Inbox under that assignee, keeping it connected to the original care navigation episode.
If something goes wrong during the booking (for example, a slot conflict), an incomplete booking alert will surface in the Inbox so it doesn't go unnoticed.
To send the patient a form to complete, select the questionnaire link option in the message builder. You'll be able to choose from the form templates configured for your practice.
As with booking links, you can set the Inbox assignee at this point — the person or team who should receive the episode when the patient submits their response. When they do, a linked episode is created on the same episode as the original request, so all related activity stays grouped together.
If your practice has configured default episode settings for a particular form template (such as a default priority or assignee), those will pre-populate automatically when you select that questionnaire.
To allow the patient to send a free-text response, include a patient reply link in your message. This adds a secure link the patient can use to submit their reply without needing to log in or create an account.
When they reply, a episode is created in the Inbox and assigned to whoever you specified when composing the message — defaulting to the episode's current assignee if you're sending from within an existing episode.
If you need to share a file with the patient — such as a referral letter, guidance document, or test result — you can attach it directly to the message before sending.
When you're composing a message from inside an existing episode, the assignee for any link you add (booking, questionnaire, or patient reply) will default to the current episode assignee. You can override this if needed. This ensures that follow-up tasks from patient actions are automatically routed back to the right person without any extra steps.
If the episode was already closed when the patient acts on a link — for example, they book an appointment days later — the episode will reopen automatically and the resulting task will appear in the relevant inbox.
Once you've sent the message, you can continue to update the episode status and assignee as normal. The patient's reply (if and when it arrives) will appear in your My Inbox if it was assigned to you, or in the relevant team's inbox if it was assigned to a team.
