What Podium is for
Podium is a messaging, reviews and payments platform practices use to text their patients. It holds the text conversations, the review requests, the web chat and the payment links, and all of it stays there. What stays in it, what is built around it and how the connection works are on the page for Podium.
A growth system reads the numbers first: revenue and margin by provider and by treatment from your record system, reply times and review counts from Podium. It builds the ninety-day plan from them. Then it adds the work around the thread. The call is answered on your number and booked into your record system. Texts and the web chat are answered inside the Podium thread after hours, the comeback is timed from the record and sent through Podium, and the numbers go on one page. The full list is on the Podium page; this page is about which job lives where and what a switch would cost.
One thread per patient keeps the deposit inside it
The thread in Podium is the record of the conversation, and the growth system is built so that it stays the only one. A comeback message, the reply, the confirmation, the deposit and the review request all land in the same thread, in order, where the front desk reads them. The payment link is what makes the deposit possible inside the thread. When Jess says yes to a consult late in the evening, the agent sends the deposit link in the thread. Once it is paid, the booking is confirmed on the record system's calendar. The review request goes out from the same thread when the result shows, in Dana's name. The dashboard counts the reply, the booking and the review as one patient's story rather than three events.
Job by job: where it lives and who does it
| Job | Where it lives | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| The text thread, the review request and the payment link | In Podium; the deposit is taken with the payment link inside the thread | Your front desk, in the inbox they already work |
| The booking and the visit history | In your record system | Your front desk and your providers |
| Answering the call in seconds | The growth system, on your number, booking into your booking calendar | The voice agent, with handoff rules to the desk |
| Answering the text and the web chat after hours | The growth system, replying inside the Podium thread | The text agent, with the desk picking up in the morning |
| Timing the comeback | Visit dates from the record system; the message sent through Podium | The system, in the provider's voice |
| The dashboard | The system, reading Podium and the record system | Read weekly by you |
When staying on Podium is right
Stay on Podium. A desk that lives in one inbox is a desk that misses less, and every message the system sends goes into that inbox rather than beside it. We run on it today in a working practice. The booking stays on the calendar in your record system; the conversation stays in Podium.
What a switch would cost you in time
Switching a messaging platform means moving a phone number, and a phone number carries more than it looks. The texting number is ported, the open threads are exported, and the review history stays where it was earned. Your texting registration is tied to the campaign it was approved for, and re-registering takes time of its own; confirm with counsel what applies to your practice. The desk answers in two inboxes through the overlap. Any remaining term on the agreement is a question for counsel. Meanwhile the phone is still ringing.
How to do this on Monday
- Open the Podium inbox and count the threads from last week that waited more than an hour for a reply, and the ones that never got one.
- Count review requests sent last month against visits completed. The gap is the review engine's first job.
- Count payment links sent last month against consults booked. A consult booked without a deposit link is the first thing the agent changes.
- Export last-visit dates from your record system and count who is past their interval.
- Send only to patients whose written consent to marketing texts is on record; what counts as consent is for counsel to confirm. Then send ten comeback texts from Podium by hand, in the provider's voice, and count the replies.
What to do next
NorthCore's Run the whole practice solution builds the growth system on top of Podium: the answering, the comeback timing, the segmentation and the dashboard, and Podium stays where it is. Scoped in writing and covered by the promise on this site: results in 90 days, or we keep working until you have them.
