We ask first, on the call
Before anything is sent, Velaire asks whether it can text you. Nothing goes out on an assumption, and the practice can show exactly when permission was given and what was said to get it.
We ask before we text. One no stops everything.
Velaire sends intake links, booking confirmations, reminders and follow-ups on your practice's behalf. Here is exactly what goes out, what we keep, and what stops it.
The four rules
How permission works, in full
These are not settings a practice has to configure correctly. They are how the product behaves by default, and two of them are enforced by the database rather than by our own code.
01
Permission is per purpose
Agreeing to appointment texts is not agreeing to marketing. We keep those as separate permissions and never treat one as the other, because the rules governing them are different.
02
One no ends everything
Reply STOP, or just say so in your own words, and messaging ends. Not that campaign, everything. We do this across the board rather than category by category, which is stricter than the rules currently require.
03
Nothing arrives at midnight
Messages go out between 8am and 9pm local time. Anything composed outside that waits for the morning rather than waking someone up, and the practice can see exactly what is holding and until when.
04
What we keep
Not that consent happened. What the patient was told.
If anyone ever asks a practice to prove it, a tick in a box proves nothing. So we store the wording itself, and it cannot be edited afterwards.
What the patient was actually told
Can I text you the booking link and any reminders about this appointment? Standard message rates apply, and you can reply STOP at any time to stop them.
HOW
Said on a recorded call
WHEN
20 Aug, 9:14 AM
CAPTURED BY
Velaire, on the call
SCRIPT VERSION
receptionist-script v6.2
COVERS
Appointment messages only
HELD FOR
Four years, unedited
Why the exact wording
The burden of proving permission sits on whoever sent the message. A record saying “consented via web form” describes the evidence without being it. Keeping the sentence the patient actually read or heard is the difference between a status and a defence.
Why it cannot be edited
Records are added, never changed. A correction is a new record on top of the old one, so what you see is what happened rather than what someone last typed. The part of our system that writes these records is not permitted to rewrite them.
Why you can see all of it
Every record is in your dashboard, next to the messages that relied on it. You should not have to ask us for it, least of all at the moment you need it.
Stopping it
They do not have to say the magic word
Plenty of systems only listen for STOP. A patient who writes a sentence has still asked you to stop, and treating that as unrecognised is how practices end up with a complaint.
Practice
Hi Sam, reminder of your appointment tomorrow at 10:20 AM. Reply C to confirm or call us to move it. Reply STOP to stop these messages.
Patient
please stop texting me
Practice
You’re unsubscribed. You won’t get any more messages from us.
What just happened, everywhere
- + Every permission this patient had given is closed, in one action. Appointments, reminders, marketing, all of it.
- + They are marked as opted out on every screen they appear on, not only inside the consent record, so nobody has to go and check.
- + Any campaign that would have included them now shows them as held back, with the count visible before anyone sends.
- + Nobody at the practice can put them back on the list. Only they can.
A rule due in 2027 will require this across categories. We built to it early, because designing around a temporary exemption means rebuilding when it ends, and it means a patient who asked once has to ask twice.
What we never do
The limits, stated plainly
Worth reading even if you never think about it again. These are the four questions a practice should be asking any vendor that messages its patients.
We do not send patient details to advertising platforms
No tracking pixel, no conversions API, no audience upload. Sending it from a server rather than a browser is the same act, and we treat it the same way.
Staff cannot undo an opt-out
Nobody at the practice and nobody at Velaire can put someone back on the list. It reverses only if that patient asks us to start again.
We do not judge what a patient tells us
The after-visit check-in asks how you are and puts your reply in front of a person at the practice. It does not score it, rank it, or decide how urgent it is.
No message goes out without a way to stop it
A message template cannot even be saved without an opt-out line. It is not a policy someone has to remember, it is a rule the system enforces.
Every one of these is visible in your dashboard rather than taken on trust. See what the dashboard shows
FAQs
A few things you might be wondering
No. Consent is captured before anything sends, usually during the call itself, and the exact wording the patient heard is stored with the record. A practice can show when permission was given and what was said to get it.
Messaging stops across everything, not just the message they replied to. Any reasonable wording works, not only the word STOP: a patient who writes "please stop texting me" has opted out just as effectively. Staff cannot reverse it; only a fresh request from the patient can.
No, and Velaire keeps them as separate permissions. A patient who agreed to booking texts has not agreed to promotional messages, so a marketing send to that patient is blocked rather than assumed. The two carry different legal requirements.
The disclosure exactly as the patient saw or heard it, the version of the script or form it came from, how it was captured, when, and by whom. Records are added and never edited, and are held for four years. A description like "the box was ticked" is not evidence, which is why we keep the wording itself.
Between 8am and 9pm local time. Anything generated outside that window is queued until the window opens rather than sent late, and the queue is visible in your dashboard so a held message is never a silent one.
The practice sending it, which is why Velaire keeps the evidence rather than just a status. Consent collected by a third party, including an ad platform's own lead form, does not transfer that responsibility, so we treat lead contacts as needing their own express permission.
Let’s make room for better care
Your next caller
could be your next patient.
See how Velaire would handle the calls your practice misses. A personal walkthrough, built around your questions.
Let’s talk about your practice