In Careswitch, Contacts are the people and organizations connected to your clients' care who are not clients or staff members. A contact can be an individual—such as a family member, a primary care physician, a social worker, or a care coordinator—or an organization, such as a hospital, a doctor's office, a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility, or an insurance provider.
Your agency uses contacts for two main things. First, contacts give you one place to store the people and organizations involved in a client's care, with their phone numbers, email, fax, address, and notes. Second, a contact can be set up as a payer—someone who pays for a client's services—so that Careswitch can invoice them and track payments. You can also link a contact to the employees and clients they relate to using Connections.
This guide walks you through every task on the Contacts page: finding and filtering contacts, creating a contact, editing details, setting up and editing payer information, granting guest access, using tags, reading the activity feed, viewing invoices and policies, managing connections, and archiving or restoring a contact.
Opening the Contacts page
In the left sidebar, under the People heading, click Contacts.
The Contacts list opens as a table. Each row is one contact, and the columns show Contact (name), Type, Tags, Mobile Number, Email, Payer Status, Status, and Connections.
To choose which columns are shown, click the columns control in the toolbar above the table and turn columns on or off. Click any sortable column heading to sort the list by that column.
Searching and filtering the contact list
The toolbar above the table helps you narrow the list down to the contacts you want.
Searching
Find the Search box in the toolbar above the table.
Type a contact's name, email, phone number, or organization name. The list narrows to matching contacts.
Filtering
Click Filter in the toolbar, then choose from any of these options:
Type: show only Individual contacts or only Organization contacts.
Tags: show only contacts that have one or more of the tags you select. This menu is only available once tags have been set up for your workspace.
Payer Status: choose Is Payer to see contacts set up as payers, or Not Payer to see the rest.
Status: choose Active or Archived.
Connected To: show only contacts connected to a particular person (for example, an employee or a client). Your own profile appears as My Profile at the top of this list.
You can turn on more than one filter at a time. To clear a single filter, open it and click Clear. To remove every filter at once, click the clear-filters control in the toolbar.
Creating a new contact
On the Contacts page, click Create Contact in the top right.
At the top of the form, choose the Individual tab (for a person) or the Organization tab (for a company or facility). Switching tabs swaps the form between the two.
Open the Contact Type dropdown and pick the category that fits. For an individual, the choices are Family, Primary Care Physician, Medical Specialist, Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Social Worker, Care Coordinator, and Other. For an organization, the choices include Medical Provider, Doctor's Office, Hospital, Rehabilitation Center, Pharmacy, Skilled Nursing Facility, Long Term Care Facility, Assisted Living Facility, Retirement Community, Group Home, Insurance Provider, and Other.
Fill in the name. For an individual, enter the First Name and Last Name (both required). For an organization, enter the Name (required).
Add any contact details you have: Phone Number, Alternate Phone Number, Email, and Fax. Organization contacts also have a URL field for a website.
To add a mailing address, check Add Address and complete the Address Line 1, Address Line 2, City, State, and ZIP fields. This address can appear on invoices if the contact is used as a payer on a service that is electronically invoiced.
If this contact will pay for services, check Make Payer and complete the billing fields that appear (see Setting up payer information below for what each field means).
Click Create Contact to save. To leave without saving, click Cancel.
Opening a contact's profile
In the contact list, click the contact's name.
The profile opens on the Profile tab. Across the top you'll see tabs: Profile, Activity, Invoices, and Connections. A Policies tab also appears when the contact is set up as a payer. Click any tab to switch between them.
At the top of every tab you'll see the contact's photo, their type (Individual or Organization), an Active or Archived badge, their name, and their tags. You can change the photo by clicking the avatar and uploading an image.
Editing a contact's details
The Profile tab shows a Details section with the contact's Type, Name, Phone Number, Alternate Phone Number, Email, Fax, and Address. Organization contacts also show a URL.
On the Profile tab, click Edit next to the Details heading.
Update any of the fields. The form matches the contact's type: individual contacts show an Individual Type, First Name, and Last Name; organization contacts show an Organization Type and Name.
To add or change a mailing address, use the Add Address checkbox and the address fields.
Save your changes. To leave without saving, click Cancel.
Setting up payer information
If a contact pays for a client's services, set them up as a payer so Careswitch can invoice them. Payer settings live in the Private Payer Information section of the Profile tab.
On the Profile tab, find the Private Payer Information section.
If the contact is not yet a payer, you'll see the message “This contact is not a payer.” Click Make Payer.
Choose an Invoice Frequency: Weekly, Biweekly, Semi-Monthly, or Monthly. If you choose Weekly or Biweekly, also choose a Billing Week so all clients with this payer share the same billing window.
Choose Days Until Due (when the invoice is due after it's sent).
Choose an Invoicing Method—how the invoice is delivered. The options are Embedded Billing (Careswitch emails a hosted invoice and collects payment online by credit card or ACH), Email Invoice (emails the invoice, requires an email on the contact), Fax Invoice (delivers by fax, requires a fax number), Payer Portal (for long-term-care portal submission, requires an organization contact with a website URL), and Print Mail Invoice (print and mail).
Choose a Payment Method. The available choices depend on the invoicing method you picked.
For non-Stripe methods, you can turn on Attach care notes? to bundle care notes from the billing cycle with the invoice.
Click Make Payer to save. To leave without saving, click Cancel.
Once a contact is a payer, the Private Payer Information section shows their Invoicing method, Frequency, Payment details, and related settings. To change them later, click Edit in that section. For Embedded Billing payers, this section also shows whether the payment method is Verified and offers buttons to start or finish payment-method verification.
Granting or revoking guest access
The Profile tab has an Access Management section where you can give a contact access to a guest portal. With guest access, the contact can sign in to view a dashboard, their connections, and related information.
On the Profile tab, find the Access Management section and its Guest Access card.
If the contact does not have access, click Grant Access and follow the prompts.
If the contact already has access, click Revoke Access to remove it.
Adding and removing tags
Tags are colored labels you can attach to a contact to group or organize them. Tags are created in your workspace settings; once they exist, you can apply them from a contact's profile.
Open the contact's profile. Just below the contact's name you'll see their tags, or an Add Tag option if none are applied yet.
Click there to open the tag menu. Tags are grouped by color. Click a tag to apply it; a checkmark shows which tags are currently applied. Click an applied tag again to remove it.
To remove every tag at once, click Clear All in the tag menu.
If no tags have been set up yet, the menu points you to Configure tags in workspace settings (if you have permission) or asks you to have your admin configure them.
Using the activity feed
The Activity tab is a running timeline of what has happened on a contact, along with notes your team adds.
On the contact's profile, click the Activity tab.
To add a note, click in the Leave a note... box, type your note, and click the send (up arrow) button.
To remove a note you added, find it and click the X on the note, then confirm by clicking Delete. You can only delete notes you added yourself.
Viewing a contact's invoices
On the contact's profile, click the Invoices tab.
You'll see a list of invoices tied to this contact, with columns for Cycle, Status, Amount, and Client. Use the Search box above the table to find a specific invoice, and click a column heading to sort.
If the contact has no invoices, you'll see “No invoices found.”
Viewing a payer's policies
When a contact is set up as a payer, a Policies tab appears showing the billing policies that name this contact as the payer.
On the contact's profile, click the Policies tab.
The table lists each policy with its Policy Name, Client, Coverage Start Date, Coverage End Date, Services, and Status. Use the Search box to find a specific policy and click a column heading to sort.
Managing connections
Connections link a contact to the employees and clients they relate to, so you can see at a glance who is involved with this contact's care. The Connections column on the contacts list shows how many connections each contact has.
On the contact's profile, click the Connections tab. The table shows each connection's Name, Type, Connected As, Notes, and Actions.
Use the Display menu to show All, Clients, or Employees. Use the Filter menu to filter by how someone is connected (for example, Primary Manager or Secondary Manager). Use the Search box to find a specific connection.
To add a connection, click Add Connection and choose Employee.
On the form, pick the employee in the Employee field, choose one or more connection types in the Connect ... as... field, and optionally add notes that appear on each profile.
Click Save, or click Cancel to go back without saving.
To edit or remove an existing connection, use the controls in the Actions column for that row. If the contact has no connections, you'll see “No connections found.”
Archiving or restoring a contact
Open the contact's profile.
Click the More (three-dot) menu in the top right.
Click Archive to archive an active contact, or Restore to bring back an archived one.
When archiving, confirm in the dialog by clicking Archive.
Existing invoices are not affected when you archive a contact, and you can restore the contact later. If the contact still has outstanding invoices, active policies, or active guest access, the dialog lists what you need to resolve first—for example, settle or void open invoices, archive or reject active policies, or revoke guest access—before you can archive.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a contact and a client?
A client (also called a recipient) is the person who receives care from your agency. A contact is anyone else connected to that care who isn't a client or a staff member—for example, a family member, a physician, a social worker, a hospital, or an insurance provider. Contacts live on the Contacts page under the People heading in the sidebar.
Should I add a contact as an Individual or an Organization?
Choose Individual for a single person, such as a family member or a doctor. Choose Organization for a company or facility, such as a hospital, doctor's office, or insurance provider. Only organization contacts have a website URL field, and Payer Portal invoicing requires an organization contact with a URL.
How do I make a contact a payer?
You can do it two ways. When creating the contact, check Make Payer on the form and fill in the billing fields. For an existing contact, open their Profile tab, find the Private Payer Information section, and click Make Payer. To change payer settings later, click Edit in that same section.
Why don't I see a Policies tab on a contact?
The Policies tab only appears when the contact is set up as a payer. Set the contact up as a payer in the Private Payer Information section of the Profile tab, and the Policies tab will appear.
Why can't I delete a note in the activity feed?
On the Activity tab you can only delete notes that you added yourself. Notes added by other team members, and automatically generated activity entries, can't be deleted by you. To delete one of your own notes, click the X on it and confirm with Delete.
Why won't a contact archive?
A contact can't be archived while it still has open items. The archive dialog lists what to resolve first: outstanding invoices to settle or void, active policies to archive or reject, and active guest access to revoke. Once those are cleared, you can archive the contact. Archiving doesn't affect existing invoices, and you can restore the contact later from the More menu.
I created a tag but it doesn't show up—why?
Tags are created in your workspace settings, not on the contact itself. If no tags have been set up, the tag menu on a contact will point you to Configure tags in workspace settings (or ask your admin to set them up). Once tags exist, open a contact, click below their name to open the tag menu, and click a tag to apply it.
How do I find all the contacts connected to a specific person?
On the Contacts page, click Filter, open Connected To, and choose the person. The list narrows to contacts connected to them. You can also open an individual contact's Connections tab to see who that one contact is linked to.