A phone platform move is about the number, the threads and the balances
This page leaves the chart alone. Wherever your practice keeps the legal record of care, keep this move away from it. At stake are the number patients have saved, the text threads your front desk scrolls back through, the call history, and any payment requests sent through the platform. A number ports; the threads and the history come out as whatever the export contains, which you confirm in writing. Jess, who texted last month to ask about their next neurotoxin visit, expects the reply to land in the same thread. If it lands in a new one with no history, the front desk starts that conversation from nothing.
What stays reachable and what goes dark on port day
- Your main number. Ask the current vendor in writing what the porting process and notice look like, and ask the next one what day the number answers there.
- The text threads. Ask what the export contains and whether the new platform imports history, because a thread with no past reads as a stranger to the front desk.
- Call recordings and the call log, if you keep them. Decide with counsel how long each is kept and where the old copy lives.
- Payment requests and balances sent through the platform. Each was given to a patient on stated terms, and what is owed on any that is open is confirmed with your accountant before it is collected elsewhere.
- Every place the number and the text link appear: the website, the Google profile, the Instagram bio, the appointment reminder, the card on the counter.
Questions about your practice that decide this, with no vendor in the room
- Count the reasons you are looking and mark each as a phone-platform reason or a growth reason, such as calls missed mid-treatment or lapsed patients who heard nothing.
- Count last month's calls that went to voicemail during treatment hours, from your own call log. A new phone platform rings the same empty desk.
- List who texts patients today and from which screens, and who would learn a new one.
- Read the agreement for term, notice, porting and export, and send it to counsel.
- Ask where patient messages are stored, who signs the Business Associate Agreement, and whether the texts your team sends are marketing or transactional; confirm the consent rules with counsel.
- Read the vendor's pricing page for the number of lines and locations you expect next year.
Owners for each piece, whether you port or stay
| Piece | If you port | If you stay on Weave | Who owns the step |
|---|---|---|---|
| The main number | Ported on a date the two vendors confirm in writing | Stays; the answering layer takes the call on it | You, with both vendors' porting contacts |
| Text threads and call history | Exported in the format the vendor states; imported if the next platform accepts it | Stay where the front desk reads them | Priya, who checks ten threads after the move |
| Payment requests and balances | Carried over on the terms given, with what is owed confirmed with your accountant; collected wherever you choose next | Keep running as they do | You, with your accountant, in writing before port day |
| Appointment reminders and the booking link | Rebuilt and re-pointed on port day | Untouched | Priya, with a list of every place the link lives |
| The comeback text and the weekly page | Rebuilt on the new platform after the overlap | Read from the record system; the message goes out on your number | The growth system, with you reading it each week |
The growth system answers on your number whichever platform carries it
NorthCore builds the growth system around the number, whichever platform carries it, and moves nothing. The number is the asset: every patient has it saved, every profile shows it, and the growth system answers on it. A call that rings while Dana is injecting is answered, and the booking lands on the calendar your practice keeps as the calendar of record. The comeback reads last-visit dates from the record and goes out as a text on that same number in the week Jess is due. Margins are read first, from the invoices and the menu, so the membership and the party are priced from them, and the week's numbers sit on one page. How the number routes to the answering layer is a setup decision made with whichever phone platform you keep. If you stay on Weave, that is where the routing is set; if you port, it is set again on the new platform. The Answer every patient page shows the answering layer, and the Weave page shows how the two sit together.
How to decide in two weeks
- Day one: write every reason on its own line and mark it platform or growth.
- Day two: pull last month's call log and count the calls that went to voicemail during treatment hours.
- Day three: read the agreement for term, notice, porting and export, and send it to counsel.
- Days four and five: ask the vendor in writing what an export of threads and call history contains, and request one.
- Days six to eight: ask any vendor you are considering what it imports, what day the number would answer there, and who signs the Business Associate Agreement.
- Day nine: list every place the number and the text link appear, with a name beside each for port day.
- Days ten to fourteen: price the growth list as a system built around the platform you have, price the platform list as a port, and decide them apart.
What to do next
NorthCore's Answer every patient solution builds the answering layer on your number around Weave or whichever communication platform you keep, scoped in writing before any work. Results in 90 days, or we keep working until you have them.
