How patients reach your clinic on WhatsApp: your clinic's own WhatsApp Business number
Docistra uses the official WhatsApp Business API, so there is no QR to scan, no phone to keep online and no session that can drop. Patients message your clinic's own WhatsApp number and reach your assistant directly. You connect it in Settings → WhatsApp.
| Your clinic's number | |
|---|---|
| Patients message | Your clinic's WhatsApp number, directly or through your clinic link and QR |
| Setup | Connect your Meta app, or let us do it. See WhatsApp Settings. |
| The assistant introduces itself as | Your clinic's assistant |
| Meta message fees | Billed by Meta to your own Meta account |
Until a number is connected, your clinic has no WhatsApp: the assistant doesn't answer there, and no reminders, review requests or prescriptions are sent on WhatsApp. Your clinic QR then opens your check-in page instead.
Your clinic's number
Connect your number in WhatsApp Settings, yourself or with our paid setup. A clinic with several branches can have a main number for every branch and/or one number per branch. See Several numbers.
Once a number is connected:
- Your clinic link and printed QR from Codes & QR open a chat with your number, with a booking message already filled in. Posters you already printed keep working.
- A patient who writes to a branch's number is offered that branch first. See How messages are routed.
Put your clinic link on your Facebook page, Instagram bio and Google Maps listing, and the printed QR at reception.
A number connected to the WhatsApp Business API stops working in the WhatsApp Business app on the phone. Import your old chats first, or use a new number.
Docistra's own WhatsApp number is only used for sign-in codes and system messages to your team. Patients never message it to reach your clinic.
What happens with each message
- The patient messages your clinic's number.
- Docistra matches the message to your clinic and to the patient's record (a new patient record is created on the first message).
- Photos, voice notes, videos and files are read automatically, so the AI understands a prescription photo, a lab result PDF or a voice question.
- The AI waits a few seconds so a patient who sends several messages in a row gets one reply, then answers using your doctors, availability, knowledge base and instructions.
- The chat appears in Conversations, where your team can read it, pause the AI and reply.
If the AI can't answer (for example the subscription isn't active or the clinic profile is incomplete), the message is still saved for your team. See When the AI stops answering.
The 24-hour rule
WhatsApp only allows normal messages to a patient for 24 hours after their last message. After that, a business can only send pre-approved templates.
- The AI always replies inside this window, because it only answers messages patients send.
- Your team can reply from Conversations only while the window is open. There is no template fallback, so reply quickly. See Conversations.
- Reminders, review requests and prescriptions switch to approved templates automatically when the window is closed. See Reminders and Prescriptions.
The window belongs to the number the patient wrote to: only messages to that number count, and a message to one of your numbers doesn't open the window on another. Template messages need templates approved on your own account (see Message templates).