User Guide
Communication
ArkCloud RCM does not have a screen for composing and sending an email or text message to a patient. This page explains what it does send, how, and what that depends on.
Written for: Collectors and billing staff · Supervisors · Administrators
What ArkCloud can send
| Field or control | What it means |
|---|---|
| Portal invitation | Email or text with a portal link, from an account's Statements tab. Sent by a member of staff. See the patient portal documentation. |
| Statement-ready notice | Email or text with a portal link when a statement is issued. Automatic, once an administrator switches it on at Settings → Patient messaging (or, in Rehab, Administration → Appointment reminders - the same switch). |
| Appointment reminders | Email or text before a Rehab appointment. Automatic, once switched on. |
| Portal messages | Replies to patients who message the billing office from the portal. Shown to the patient inside the portal - no email or text is sent. |
| Letters | Generated from templates as documents for your team to send. ArkCloud does not print or mail them. |
| Emailed statement letters | Send on Patient AR → Statements emails an Email-channel statement letter to the guarantor. Postal statement letters are refused - print and mail them. |
Emailing or texting a patient yourself
On a Collections account, Send Email and Send Text open your own device's email or messaging app with the patient's address filled in, and record that you made contact. The message is sent from your device, not from ArkCloud.
The Messaging screen under Call Center (shown only where Amazon Connect is configured) cannot send: its New Message, Preview and Send buttons are disabled.
Text messages
Automatic texts (reminders, statement notices, portal invitations) go only to patients whose record has text-message consent, which is off by default. They carry no balance or account detail - just the patient's first name and a link - and end with "Reply STOP to opt out."
Letters
ArkCloud RCM → RCM Operations → Letters
The Letters Queue lists generated letters; Templates is where templates are written. Templates have a channel (PDF / Print, Email or SMS) and a status (Draft, Active or Archived), and can use merge fields.
| Field or control | What it means |
|---|---|
| Patient | PatientFirstName, PatientLastName, PatientFullName, PatientAddress, PatientPhone, PatientEmail |
| Account | AccountNumber, Balance, TotalCharges, TotalPayments, DateOfService |
| Other | ClientName, CurrentDate |
Generating and sending a letter
Letters reach the Letters Queue in two ways: an account's Statements tab generates balance-due and itemized statement letters, and a scheduled letter cadence can generate letters automatically where one has been set up for your organisation (there is no screen for configuring it).
- Send the letter through your own print and mail process.
- On the Letters Queue, tick the letters and select Mark as Sent to record that they went. This only changes the status - ArkCloud does not mail, print or email anything.
Seeded letter templates
A new organisation does not automatically get a set of letter templates. The first time a balance-due or itemized statement letter is generated, ArkCloud creates a basic "Balance Due Statement" or "Itemized Statement" template if none exists. ArkCloud can also load a starter set - Balance Due Notice, Itemized Statement Notice, Payment Plan Confirmation, Financial Assistance Information and Dispute Acknowledgement - but only when ArkCloud runs it for your organisation; ask support. Review the wording of any template against your own legal requirements before using it - ArkCloud does not add debt-collection disclosures for you.
Consent and contact preferences
Automatic messages check the email and text consent flags on the patient record. Texts about statements, payments, payment plans and portal links, and texts staff send from a notification, also read the patient's contact preferences and the TCPA consent register: an opt-out in any of the three stops the text, consent in any one allows it, and with no consent recorded anywhere nothing is texted. They are also sent only between 8am and 9pm in your organisation's timezone. Contact preferences a patient sets in the portal (preferred channel, do-not-text, do-not-email and so on) are stored separately, and there is no staff screen for viewing or editing them. Ticking do-not-text or do-not-email in the portal also turns the matching consent flag off, so automatic messages stop; un-ticking does not turn it back on.
See the portal's Messages & help tab and notifications (for staff alerts).
Bulk communications
There is no bulk email or text campaign feature. The send-text and send-email actions in automated collection rules do not run; they report "This action does not run automatically yet. Nothing was sent or changed."