What the Inbox is
The Inbox collects the things that happened and need you: a colleague has referred a patient to you, a result has come back against a test you ordered, another practitioner has written to you.
It is grouped by person, not by message. One colleague who has sent you three referrals and a message is a single row in the list. Open it and you see the whole conversation with them, oldest first.
If you work at more than one facility, the Inbox shows everything addressed to you at all of them together. You do not need to switch facility to find a message.
Most messages here were created by something that happened, and they carry the details of that thing. You can reply to a colleague, but this is a record of work, not an instant-messaging app.
1Find your way around
Where: Connect › Inbox
The list on the left is one row per person, newest first. Each row shows their name, the last thing sent, and a count of what you have not read yet.
- All, Unread and Read narrow the list. The number on Unread is the total across your whole Inbox, so it does not change when you search.
- Search by sender finds a colleague by name.
- Click a row to open the conversation. Opening it marks what you have seen as read.
The search looks at the people who wrote to you — practitioners and companies. It does not search patient names. To find a patient, use the patient search in CMS.
2Accept a referral
A referral arrives as a card marked New referral. It names the colleague who sent it, why they sent it, and carries a link to the referral record itself.
- Open the conversation and read the card.
- Press Accept and see patient details.
- You are taken to Referrals, where the patient's details are now open to you.
This works even when the referral comes from a practice you have no account at. You do not need to be invited, or to switch anywhere first.
Only one acceptance is recorded. If a colleague accepted it a moment before you, you are told the referral changed while you were reading it — reload to see where it stands.
When you accept, decline or complete a referral, the doctor who sent it sees that in their own Inbox, in the same conversation with you.
3Write to a colleague
- Press New message at the top right, and choose a practitioner.
- Write your message and press Send.
- To continue an existing conversation, open it and use the box at the bottom.
You can write to a practitioner you are connected with, or one you share a patient with. If neither is true, Kulcare will tell you why it cannot send it. This keeps the Inbox to people you actually work with.
The Kulcare conversation is from us. You cannot reply to it.
4Send a file
Use Attach a file under the message box.
- One file per message, up to 10 MB.
- PDFs and images (JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC).
- You can send a file on its own, with no words.
If a file is too large or the wrong kind, you are told before anything is sent, so nothing goes out half-finished.
Prescriptions, reports and other clinical records belong in the patient's own record, where the right people can find them and the right rules apply. A file attached here is correspondence between you and one colleague. Referrals and results already carry a link to the real record — use that instead of attaching a copy.
5Stop an unwanted conversation
Two separate tools, for two different problems.
Block
Block at the top of a conversation stops that person writing to you. Everything already in the conversation stays readable, and you can unblock at any time.
Referrals and results from a blocked colleague still arrive. They are marked so you can see who they came from. A referral about a patient is too important to drop because of a disagreement between two doctors, so Kulcare will not drop it.
Report
Report on a message sends it to Kulcare staff. Choose the reason that fits: spam, harassment, impersonation, phishing, a clinical-safety concern, or something else. Add anything you want staff to know.
You get a reference number once, when you file it. Keep it if you want to follow up. Nobody in the conversation is told that you reported them.
When something looks wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| "You appear to be offline." | Your connection dropped. Nothing is lost; it loads when you are back. |
| A message you sent stays in the box | It did not send. Your words are kept so you can try again. |
| "That referral is no longer available." | It was withdrawn or already dealt with. Check Referrals. |
| A colleague's name is missing | Their record could not be read from here. Tell support; the conversation still works. |
| A result you expected never arrived | Results only reach the practitioner recorded as having ordered the test. If that was not you, it goes to them. |
Privacy and who sees what
Only the two people in a conversation can read it. Nobody at the facility, and no other practitioner, can open your Inbox.
- Patient names are kept out of the messages themselves. A referral card tells you a referral arrived and links to the record; the clinical detail lives in the record, behind the usual rules.
- Files are checked before they are shown. A link to an attachment is not a key — anyone who is not in the conversation is refused, even with the exact address.
- Access is logged. Kulcare records that a message was opened or sent, as health regulations require. The log does not keep a copy of what was written.
- If you report a message, staff can read that conversation to judge the report. That is the only case where anyone else sees it.
Not here yet
So you know what to expect rather than hunting for it:
- Messages with pharmaceutical companies. The consent setting that would let you choose is still being built, so these are refused for now.
- Very long conversations. Past about 50 messages you cannot yet reach the older ones.
- A welcome message for new practitioners.