After-Hours Communication

After-hours settings control what patients see when they message outside business hours and how your team is notified of urgent communications.

DPC patients value access to their provider, but your team needs boundaries. DPC Pro lets you configure after-hours behavior (including auto-reply messages, urgency routing, and notification rules) so patients get an appropriate response and clinicians are not interrupted unnecessarily.

This page covers how to set up after-hours messaging rules, craft auto-reply messages, and define what constitutes an urgent message that should bypass normal routing. You will also learn how to adjust these settings for holidays and vacation coverage.

Clear after-hours communication policies improve patient satisfaction and protect your team’s work-life balance.

Define Business Hours for Messaging

Business hours determine when your practice considers incoming messages to be “during hours” versus “after hours.” Messaging hours may differ from your clinic’s visiting hours. For example, your office may close at 5 PM but staff may respond to messages until 6 PM.

Setting Messaging Hours

Navigate to Settings → Locations.
Select your practice location.
In the Operating Hours section, set the open and close times for each day of the week.
Save your changes.

Operating hours are configured per location. If your practice has multiple locations, each location can have its own schedule.

Example Schedule

Day	Open	Close
Monday	`09:00`	`17:00`
Tuesday	`09:00`	`17:00`
Wednesday	`09:00`	`17:00`
Thursday	`09:00`	`17:00`
Friday	`09:00`	`16:00`
Saturday	—	—
Sunday	—	—

Days without operating hours are treated as fully after-hours. Messages received on those days trigger after-hours behavior.

Timezone Handling

Operating hours are interpreted in your organization’s configured timezone. If your team members are in different timezones, the practice timezone is used as the reference for determining whether a message arrived during or after business hours.

Auto-Reply Messages

When a patient sends a message outside business hours, DPC Pro can send an automatic reply letting them know when to expect a response.

Configuring Auto-Reply Text

A good auto-reply message should include:

Acknowledgment: confirm the message was received.
Expected response time: tell the patient when they can expect a reply (for example, “We will respond during our next business day”).
Emergency instructions: provide clear guidance for medical emergencies (for example, “If this is a medical emergency, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room”).
Alternative contact: optionally include a phone number for urgent after-hours issues.

Example Auto-Reply

“Thank you for your message. Our office is currently closed. We will respond during our next business day (Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM). If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room. For urgent non-emergency issues, call our after-hours line at (555) 123-4567.”

When Auto-Replies Are Sent

Auto-replies are triggered when:

A patient sends a message through the patient portal or via SMS.
The message is received outside the operating hours of the practice’s primary location.
The patient has not already received an auto-reply for the same conversation within a recent time window (to avoid sending repeated auto-replies for follow-up messages).

Auto-replies are system-generated messages. They appear in the conversation thread so your team can see what the patient received.

Urgency Routing

Some messages require attention before the next business day. DPC Pro’s priority system lets patients and staff flag messages as urgent, which can trigger immediate notifications even after hours.

How Patients Flag Urgent Messages

When a message is marked as urgent:

The message is tagged with Urgent priority in the conversation thread.
The conversation appears with a visual indicator in the inbox.
Clinician notification rules for urgent messages are applied (see Clinician Notification Preferences below).

How Staff Flag Urgent Messages

Staff can set the priority of any message when composing or replying:

Open the compose or reply area.
Set the Priority to Urgent.
Send the message.

Urgent messages from staff to patients are sent with the same delivery priority. Urgent messages in team conversations alert assigned staff.

Urgency and Notification Rules

When an urgent message arrives after hours:

DPC Pro checks the clinician notification preferences for the assigned provider.
If the provider has after-hours urgent notifications enabled, a notification is sent immediately through their preferred channel (SMS, email, or push).
If the provider has do-not-disturb enabled, the message is held until the next business day unless it is escalated.

Clinician Notification Preferences

Each clinician can configure how they want to be notified about messages, both during and after business hours.

Per-Clinician Settings

Clinician notification preferences typically include:

During business hours: receive in-app and email notifications for all messages.
After hours (non-urgent): hold notifications until the next business day.
After hours (urgent): send immediate SMS or push notification.
Do-not-disturb: suppress all notifications during specific hours (for example, 10 PM to 7 AM), with an exception for messages escalated by another team member.

Coverage Rotation

For practices with multiple providers, you can set up a coverage rotation to determine who receives after-hours urgent notifications:

Assign one provider as the on-call clinician for a given time period.
After-hours urgent messages are routed to the on-call provider’s notification channel.
Other providers’ after-hours notifications remain suppressed unless they are explicitly assigned.

Holiday and Vacation Coverage

Holidays and vacation periods require temporary changes to your after-hours settings.

Holiday Hours

To configure holiday hours:

Navigate to Settings → Locations.
Update the operating hours for the specific dates when your practice will be closed or operating on a reduced schedule.
Save your changes.

On days with no operating hours, all incoming messages are treated as after-hours and trigger auto-reply behavior.

Vacation Coverage

When a clinician is on vacation:

Reassign patients: temporarily assign the clinician’s patients to a covering provider. Messages from those patients then go to the covering provider’s inbox.
Update conversation assignments: reassign open conversations from the vacationing clinician to the covering provider.
Update auto-reply: adjust the auto-reply text to mention the covering provider, if appropriate (for example, “Dr. Smith is out of the office this week. Dr. Jones is covering patient messages.”).

Extended Auto-Reply Periods

For extended closures (holidays, practice retreats), consider:

Setting a specific auto-reply message that includes the closure dates and the expected return date.
Providing an after-hours contact number for urgent issues.
Designating a team member to monitor the inbox for urgent messages during the closure.

Returning from a Holiday or Vacation

When your practice reopens:

Restore normal operating hours in location settings.
Revert the auto-reply to your standard after-hours message.
Reassign patients back to their primary providers.
Review any conversations that accumulated during the closure and respond to outstanding messages. AI-drafted replies can help your team work through a backlog of patient messages more efficiently.

Need Help?

If you need assistance configuring after-hours communication, reach out to the DPC Pro support team at [email protected] or visit the troubleshooting guide.