Portal experience
Everything patients see once they are signed in: the portal shell, checkout order, their menu, and which emails they get.
Six cards that decide what a signed-in patient sees and what the platform emails them. The card is called Portal experience, even though the address says patient-experience.
Questions people ask about this page
I was told to open "Patient experience" and cannot find it.
The card is titled Portal experience. The route is still /settings/patient-experience, so old deep links work; only the visible name changed.
Two pages are called Notifications. Which is which?
The Notifications card at the bottom of this page controls emails and texts to patients. Settings → Notifications is a different page and controls alerts to your team. See Settings — Notifications.
Where are the themes?
Not here. Storefront, login, email, and form themes live on Settings → Branding.
How do I reorder the patient menu?
With the up and down arrow buttons on each row, labelled Move {page} up and Move {page} down. There is no drag handle.
Should checkout be intake first or payment first?
Intake first means the patient answers your health questions before paying, so you never charge someone a provider will decline. Payment first converts better but produces refunds. You set Products and Labs independently.
Why is a checkbox greyed out?
Partner collects product payment off-platform is disabled until API Orders is enabled for your account. Its helper says so: Requires API Orders to be enabled for this client (Super Admin → Client settings).
Do changes here go live immediately?
The toggles and pickers do. The custom link and section dialogs do not — both say The live portal changes only after you save.
Can I stop patients emailing us entirely?
Turn off Allow patients to send messages under Patient messaging. History stays readable: Turning this off keeps conversation history available in read-only mode.
Where to find it
Left menu → Settings → card Portal experience. Direct link: /settings/patient-experience. Visible to: Client Admin only, and hidden entirely on Review-Only accounts. Card description: Patient portal navigation, dashboard modules, checkout flow order, and notifications.
What is on this page
| Card | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Portal layout | The shape of the signed-in portal shell. |
| Checkout | Whether intake or payment comes first, and the public checkout disclaimer. |
| Experience settings | Eleven behaviour switches covering staff permissions, receipts, ID checks, and order review. |
| Patient messaging | Whether patients can message you and who they can reach. |
| Patient dashboard | The patient's own menu and dashboard blocks, with a live preview. |
| Notifications | Which patient-facing emails and texts send. |
Portal layout
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Navigation style | Side menu · Icon bar · Top menu | Side menu |
| Border style | Rounded · Medium · Sharp | Rounded |
| Layout width | Contained · Wide | Contained |
Card description: Navigation style, border style, and layout width for the authenticated client portal shell.
Checkout
| Setting | Options | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Products | Intake first · Payment first | Order of steps when a signed-in patient buys a product. Helper: Checkout sequence for authenticated patient product purchases. |
| Labs | Intake first · Payment first | Same, for lab purchases. |
| Public checkout disclaimer | Hidden · Text · Checkbox | How the "changes cannot be made once an order is submitted" line appears on public product checkout. Checkbox forces the patient to acknowledge it before paying. |
An individual product can override the tenant checkout order. If one product behaves differently from the rest, open it and check its own checkout setting before assuming this page is wrong.
Experience settings
Card description: Controls checkout and visit behaviors patients experience. Eleven checkboxes, in the order they appear.
| Checkbox | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Allow Client Staff users to manage coupons | Lets Client Staff create, edit, deactivate, and assign promo codes for this client. | Off |
| Show custom fields on staff patient profiles | Staff see API customFields (read-only) on the patient profile. Patients never see them. Off by default. | Off |
| Send receipts to patients for every order | Patients get a receipt email after each paid order. | Off |
| Lock patient edits to submitted forms | Patients can still view their responses and still complete any form your team requests. Off by default. | Off |
| Require ID verification for new patients only | New patients verify ID; existing patients skip it. Off requires ID for everyone. | Off |
| Review prescription orders before checkout | Hold prescription payment prompts until your team reviews the order. | Off |
| Partner collects product payment off-platform | API orders stay unpaid until your own system charges the patient. Disabled until API Orders is enabled. | Off, disabled |
| Review lab orders before sending | Hold patient lab orders so your team can release or cancel them. Adds a Review lab order action on /orders. | Varies by account |
| Show visit purchases in the patient Orders tab | Visit purchases also appear as orders patients can open and pay. Visits always stay on the Visits tab. Off by default. | Off |
| Ask patients if they want a video call | For async purchases, show the "Do you need a live video call?" choice. | Varies by account |
| Redirect patients when they leave a visit | Turning it on reveals a URL field (placeholder https://example.com/thank-you). Send patients to this URL when they leave a sync video visit, including Back. | Off |
Patient messaging
Card description: Choose whether patients can message and which care destinations they can select.
| Switch | What it does |
|---|---|
| Allow patients to send messages | Turning this off keeps conversation history available in read-only mode. |
| AI-assisted staff drafts | Allow authorized staff to generate editable drafts from recent message text. Drafts are never sent automatically and linked provider networks must also approve. |
| Allow messaging without an order | Patients can open Messages before they have placed an order. |
| Client care team | The default destination for questions handled by your care team. |
Turn every destination off and a warning appears: Select at least one destination so patients can send messages.
How to edit the patient menu
Open the Patient dashboard card
Description: Edit portal navigation and dashboard sections against the same patient preview. It has two inner tabs, Sidebar menu and Dashboard sections.
Turn pages on or off
On Sidebar menu, tick or untick each row: Dashboard, Visits, Messages, Prescriptions, Products, Labs, Orders, Forms, Wallet, Knowledge base, Support. Anything switched off shows HIDDEN in the preview.
Reorder
Use the arrow buttons on each row, Move {page} up and Move {page} down.
Rename a page
Click the pencil, Edit {page}. The dialog explains: Rename this menu item and set the copy patients see on its page. Leave a field blank to use the default. The second field's placeholder is Optional supporting text under the page title.
Add your own link
Click Add link. Give it a name, a URL (placeholder e.g. https://example.com), and optionally a section (placeholder No section). The dialog warns The live portal changes only after you save.
Group links
Click Add section to create a heading: Group related patient links. The live portal changes only after you save.
Switch to Dashboard sections
Click the Dashboard sections tab to choose the blocks on the patient's home screen: TODAY, ORDERS, DAILY HEALTH, and WEARABLES & APPS. Add section here creates a titled block with your own HTML: Adds a titled block with optional description and custom HTML on the patient dashboard.
Read the preview
The PREVIEW pane on the right shows both at once: Sidebar menu and dashboard sections update the same patient portal preview.
Some rows cannot be switched off. Dashboard, Forms, and Wallet are fixed, because patients must always be able to reach their forms and their payment methods.
Patient notifications
The Notifications card at the bottom — Email and SMS delivery for patient-facing messages. Columns are Notification, Email, and SMS. A row with no text option shows the badge Email only and N/A in the SMS column.
| Row | What it sends | Channels |
|---|---|---|
| Account creation email | Welcome email with login link sent when a patient account is created via bulk upload or individual creation. | Email only |
| Reminder notifications | Email and SMS reminders use the existing reminder templates. Reminder timing follows provider-network rules. | Email and SMS |
| Visit scheduled | Patient message when a visit is scheduled. | Email only |
| Visit rescheduled | Patient message when a visit is rescheduled. | Email only |
| Visit cancelled | Patient message when a visit is cancelled. | Email only |
| Form submission confirmation | Covers onboarding and product form submission confirmations. | Email only |
| Order confirmation | Includes the order completion and order-linked follow-up emails. | Email only |
| Order status updates | Patient message when an order moves to a new lifecycle status. | Email only |
| Visit access delivery | Controls the patient access link sent for visit scheduling. | Email only |
| Prescription messaging rules | Controls automated prescription emails and texts created from client messaging rules. | Email and SMS |
Turning off Account creation email before a bulk import is a legitimate use — its own helper suggests it. Turning off Visit access delivery is not: patients then have no link to join their visit.
Statuses you will see here
| Marker | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| HIDDEN (preview pane) | That menu item is unticked, so patients will not see it. | Tick the row to bring it back. |
| Email only (notifications table) | This message has no SMS version. The SMS cell reads N/A. | Nothing. |
| A greyed-out checkbox | Blocked by a platform flag or by a required page. | Read the helper under it; most say what to enable first. |
| Warning: Select at least one destination so patients can send messages. | You turned every messaging destination off. | Turn Client care team back on, or accept that patients cannot start a thread. |
What can go wrong
| What you see | Why | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| You cannot find the "Patient experience" card | It is titled Portal experience. | Look for that name, or go straight to /settings/patient-experience. |
| You changed a notification and your team stopped getting alerts | You were on the wrong Notifications table. | Team alerts are at /settings/notifications. |
| A menu item will not switch off | Dashboard, Forms, and Wallet are required. | Rename it instead with Edit {page}. |
| A custom link you added is not in the portal | The dialog was closed without saving. | Reopen Add link and save; the dialog warns that the portal only changes after you save. |
| Patients are being charged for orders providers then decline | Checkout is Payment first. | Switch Products to Intake first. |
| Patients say they cannot message you | Allow patients to send messages is off, every destination is off, or the patient has no order and Allow messaging without an order is off. | Check all three. |
| Lab orders go out before your team looks at them | Review lab orders before sending is off. | Turn it on. Then release each order from /orders. |
| You cannot enable Partner collects product payment off-platform | API Orders is a platform flag. | Raise a ticket to GEN Health. |
| You expected a Health categories section | It is not wired into the client portal-experience page. | Nothing to do here. |
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