Settings — Notifications
Set the account-wide defaults for staff alerts, and choose how often you personally are emailed or texted.
This settings tab controls two separate things: the account-wide defaults for staff alerts about patient activity, and your own personal choice of how often you are emailed or texted.
Questions people ask about this page
Is this where I turn off emails to patients?
Partly. The first switch on this page, Disable patient emails, is a master kill switch for every Gen Health email sent to your patients — visit confirmations, reminders, order updates. Which individual patient notifications exist, and their wording, is not here: that lives in Settings → Portal experience (/settings/patient-experience). See Portal experience.
I am Client Staff. Why does my Settings page look nothing like this?
Client Staff have exactly one settings page. Opening /settings shows a single Notifications card, and any other /settings/<anything> URL silently redirects to /settings/notifications. If an admin sent you a link to another tab, that is why you landed somewhere unexpected. Staff see only the personal preferences card, titled Patient message alerts.
What is the difference between Account defaults and Your delivery preferences?
Account defaults apply to everybody on your team who has not chosen otherwise. Your delivery preferences override the default for your own account only. Changing your own preference never changes anyone else's.
Why can I not turn on SMS?
Two blockers exist and the page tells you which one applies. "Client messaging is not active yet, so SMS alerts are unavailable." means your account has no messaging service running. "Add a valid phone number to your profile to enable SMS alerts." means the account is fine but your own profile has no usable mobile number. Click the person icon in the sidebar (Account settings) and fill Phone Number in the Edit Account Information dialog.
What does "At most once every 15 minutes" actually do?
It batches. Instead of one alert per patient message, you get at most one alert in each window, however many messages arrived. The window can be anything from 1 to 1440 minutes; 15 is the default.
Who gets the "patient paid" email?
That depends on which of two switches you turn on. Patient payment completed — all Client Admins emails every active Client Admin. Patient payment completed — responsible staff emails only the person who created the manual invoice or authorised the queued prescription payment prompt. You can turn on both.
Does turning on "Disable patient emails" stop my team's emails too?
No. The helper text is explicit: "Emails to staff and providers still send."
Where to find it
Left menu → Settings → the Notifications card. Direct link: /settings/notifications. The URL /settings/alerts also resolves here. Visible to: Client Admin (both cards) and Client Staff (personal card only).
What is on this page
| What you see | What it does |
|---|---|
| Page heading Notifications | Sub-line reads "Account defaults and personal delivery preferences for patient inbox alerts and payment notifications." |
| Card Account defaults | "Tenant-wide defaults for patient inbox alerts and payment notifications." Four rows, described below. Client Admin only. |
| Card Your delivery preferences | "Override account defaults for patient inbox alerts sent to you." Two columns, Email and SMS. |
| Back arrow, top left | Returns to the Settings index. Its label for screen readers is Back to settings. |
Every control on this page saves the moment you change it. There is no Save button. A success toast reads Notification settings updated, Patient email setting updated, or Notification preferences updated depending on which control you touched.
The highest-consequence switch on this page is the first one. Disable patient emails silences every Gen Health email to every patient on your account — visit confirmations, appointment reminders, order updates, payment prompts. It takes effect immediately, nothing is queued, and nothing is re-sent when you turn it back off. Patients simply stop hearing from you and will not know why. Never leave it on outside a deliberate, time-boxed migration.
How to set your account defaults
Open the tab
In the left menu, click Settings. On the Account settings grid, click the Notifications card.
Decide whether patients get email at all
The first row is Disable patient emails. Leave the switch off in normal operation. Turn it on only when you deliberately want silence — for example, while you are migrating patients in bulk.
Choose who hears about payments
Turn on Patient payment completed — all Client Admins if every admin should get a paid-order email. Turn on Patient payment completed — responsible staff if only the person who set the charge up should hear about it.
Set the default for patient messages
On the Patient messages row, tick Email, SMS, or both. As soon as one is ticked, a throttle control appears reading At most once every [number] minutes.
Set the throttle
Type a number between 1 and 1440 in the small box. It saves when you click away from the field.
How to change your own alerts
Scroll to Your delivery preferences
It is the second card, below Account defaults.
Pick an email cadence
In the Email column, choose one of Off, Every patient message, At most once every [number] minutes, or New unread activity only.
Pick an SMS cadence
The SMS column offers the same four choices. Its helper line reads "Text alerts when patients message your client inbox. Message content is never included." If the column is greyed out, read the blocker message beneath it.
Confirm it saved
A toast reads Notification preferences updated. Nothing else needs clicking.
Every setting on this page
Card 1 — Account defaults (Client Admin only)
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Disable patient emails (switch) | Master kill switch for Gen Health emails to patients: visit confirmations, reminders, order updates. Helper: "When on, patients will not receive Gen Health emails such as visit confirmations, reminders, or order updates. Emails to staff and providers still send." | Off (patients do receive email) |
| Patient payment completed — all Client Admins (switch) | Emails every active Client Admin when a patient order is paid. | Off |
| Patient payment completed — responsible staff (switch) | Emails the person who created the manual invoice, and the staff member who authorised a queued prescription payment prompt. | Off |
| Patient messages → Email (checkbox) | Account default for emailing staff when a patient writes to your inbox. | Off |
| Patient messages → SMS (checkbox) | Account default for texting staff when a patient writes to your inbox. | Off |
| At most once every … minutes (number box, appears once Email or SMS is ticked) | How often the account default alert may fire, in minutes. Range 1–1440. Saves on blur. | 15 |
The row helper for Patient messages spells out the relationship: "Account defaults for patient inbox alerts. Active Client Admins and Client Staff can override these in their personal notification preferences."
Card 2 — Your delivery preferences (both roles)
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Email → Off | No email to you when a patient messages the client inbox. | Off |
| Email → Every patient message | One email per message. | |
| Email → At most once every [n] minutes | Batched email, at most one per window. Range 1–1440, default 15. | |
| Email → New unread activity only | One email when a thread goes from read to unread, not for follow-up messages in the same unread thread. | |
| SMS → Off / Every patient message / At most once every [n] minutes / New unread activity only | The same four choices for text messages. Message content is never included in the text. | Off |
Client Staff see this card on its own, titled Patient message alerts with the description "Control email and SMS alerts for your client inbox." The four cadence choices are identical.
Statuses you will see here
This page shows no status badges. It shows three blocking messages instead:
| Message | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Client messaging is not active yet, so SMS alerts are unavailable. | Your account has no messaging service running, so no text can be sent to anyone. | Ask GEN Health support to enable messaging. See Support and tickets. |
| Add a valid phone number to your profile to enable SMS alerts. | Messaging works, but your own user profile has no usable mobile number. | Click the person icon in the sidebar (its tooltip reads Account settings). The Edit Account Information dialog opens; fill Phone Number under User Information and save. |
| Personal delivery preference edits are unavailable for this account. | Your account is in a read-only state for this control. | Ask a Client Admin, or open a ticket. |
What can go wrong
| What you see | Why | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| You changed the account default and your own alerts did not change | Your personal preference overrides the account default for you. | Change your own row in Your delivery preferences too. |
| Patients report no confirmation emails | Disable patient emails is on. | Turn it off. Nothing is retroactively re-sent. |
| The throttle box will not accept your number | It clamps to 1–1440 minutes and rounds to a whole number. | Enter a whole number in range; it saves when you click away. |
| A teammate cannot find this page | Client Staff have only one settings page and every other slug redirects to it. | Send them /settings/notifications directly. |
| You want to change which emails patients receive, not whether | Per-notification patient wording and toggles are not on this tab. | Go to Settings → Portal experience. |
| You expect an alert for a failed order or a new lab result | This tab only covers patient inbox messages and completed patient payments. There is no alert setting for anything else here. | Watch /orders and the Dashboard alerts card instead. |
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