When Are Chat Notifications Sent?

SigmaMD is designed to keep both clinicians and patients informed without sending too many alerts. Here’s how our chat notification system works:

New Chat Thread Notifications

• Whenever a clinician starts a new chat conversation, the patient is notified immediately.
• The same applies in reverse: if a patient starts a new chat, the clinician is notified.

Ongoing Conversations: Smart Notification Timing

To avoid notification fatigue, SigmaMD limits how often it notifies you about an ongoing conversation.

Within an existing chat, you are notified only if:

• The patient sends a message
  AND
• It has been more than 15 minutes since SigmaMD last sent you a notification for that chat, or you have opened the chat since that notification
  AND
• You do not currently have that chat open.

The 15-minute window is counted separately for each chat and each person, and it starts from the last notification we sent you. Opening the chat clears the window: once you have opened the chat after a notification, the next new message in it notifies you again, even if it arrives within 15 minutes of the previous notification. If you do not open the chat, you receive at most one notification per 15 minutes for that chat, no matter how many messages arrive. So if a patient answers you within 15 minutes of the last notification you received for that chat and you have not opened the chat since, no new notification is sent.

Each person has their own window. The person the chat is assigned to, anyone following the chat, and each participant in a team chat are notified independently, so one person being notified or reading the chat does not affect anyone else's notifications. For chats that are not assigned to anyone, the window is shared across the practice: anyone at your practice opening the chat clears it for everyone at the practice.

The message itself is always delivered either way, and the conversation stays in your Messaging list.

Notifications to patients follow the same 15-minute rules: a patient who has read the chat is notified of the next reply even if it arrives within 15 minutes, and a patient who currently has the chat open is not notified.

Important Note

If a clinician or patient sends multiple messages back-to-back after that 15-minute gap, only one notification is sent to the other person—so you're not flooded with alerts for every message.