Service Overview — athenaCommunicator

athenaCommunicator

athenaCommunicator is an athenahealth service that allows your practice to communicate with patients using automated appointment reminders (phone calls, emails, and text messages) and directly through a "Patient Portal," which your patients can access from your medical practice's own website.

If you are interested in this service, or if you have any questions, please contact the CSC from athenaOne > Support > Success Community > Contact Client Support Center.

Automated Messaging

Unlimited use of phone, email, and SMS-based automated messaging services:

ReminderCall — Appointment reminders
ResultsCall — Automated delivery of lab and test results
GroupCall — Automated messaging campaigns targeted to specific groups of patients

Campaign Library
Campaign Builder

Self-Pay reminders — Automated delivery of Self-Pay reminder messages

Call and messaging holidays

athenaCommunicator services do not place phone calls of any kind on the following holidays. Calls scheduled for these holidays go out one calling day earlier, based on the practice settings for calling days:

New Year's Day
Memorial Day
Independence Day (July 4th)
Labor Day
Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
New Year's Eve

For ReminderCall, GroupCall, ResultsCall, and Self-Pay reminders, the calling system adds a day to the calling window for the day before a holiday.

Email and text messages

For the holidays listed above, athenaCommunicator services send email and SMS text messages except for these GroupCall campaigns:

Immediate Cancellation
Weather
Same-day custom campaigns

If messages for these campaigns are configured to be sent on the holiday (or after the message window closes on the day before the holiday), email and text messages are not sent until the next (non-holiday) business day.

Note: For more information about message windows, see Message Windows for athenaCommunicator Automated Messages.

Self-Pay Reminders and Bank Holidays:

For Self-Pay reminders, athenaCommunicator observes bank holidays, and on the following days, we do not send any Self-Pay reminders (calls, emails, or text messages):

Martin Luther King Day
President's Day
Juneteenth
Columbus Day (Indigenous People's Day)
Veteran's Day

Messages scheduled for bank holidays go out one day earlier, based on the practice settings for message days.

Live Operators

Unlimited use of live operators on redirects from the automated messaging platform:

Extended-hour staffing across all time zones.
ReminderCall redirects for scheduling.
Scheduling redirects occur when patients request to reschedule their appointment during an outgoing reminder call. athenaCommunicator immediately connects the patient to an athenahealth employee, who reschedules the appointment without the practice needing to participate.
Self-Pay reminder call redirects for payment of patient balances.
Self-Pay redirects occur when patients request to pay their outstanding balances during an outgoing Self-Pay reminder call. athenaCommunicator immediately connects the patient to an athenahealth employee, who can accept a credit card payment over the phone.
Note: To use live operators for Self-Pay calls, the practice or provider group must have Credit Card Plus.

Patient Portal

The Patient Portal is a major feature of the athenaCommunicator service. On the Patient Portal, your patients can:

Review their health information online
Send secure messages to their providers, including prescription refill requests
View, download, and transmit their health records
Review their test results
Schedule appointments
Check in for appointments
View appointment reminders (ticklers) and past appointments
Pay outstanding balances
Review their personal demographic information

Note: For practices that use athenaClinicals but not athenaCommunicator, athenahealth offers the Patient Information Center (PIC) as a basic portal that makes it possible for your providers to meet relevant quality program measures.

Self-Pay reminders

Unlimited use of Self-Pay reminder functionality, coordinated by athenahealth:

athenahealth absorbs all statement fees
Paper statements to nonpatient Web Portal users
Electronic statements to Patient Portal users
GroupCall collection campaigns by phone, email, text message, and Patient Portal
athenahealth operators for pay-by-phone redirects
"Soft" collection letters delivered via the Patient Portal
Online credit and debit card payments

Note: Patients who have Credit Card Plus card-on-file agreements with your practice do not receive Self-Pay reminder calls because they have an agreement with your practice to charge their credit card when they have an outstanding balance.