Healthcare communication platform: 7 Options & pricing

It’s that classic medical drama we all love: a doctor gets paged mid-conversation, squints in disbelief at the message, then sprints out of the room. Scenes like this make for great TV. But in real life, older communication tools can lead to phone tag, missed messages, and scattered patient information.

That’s why many organizations are moving toward healthcare communication platforms. These bring together all the communication channels a healthcare organization needs. That way, you can easily coordinate care teams, patients, or both.

In this guide, we put together a list of seven healthcare communication tools to help you choose the right platform for your care team. We also explain how to choose the best option based on your needs.

7 Best healthcare communication platforms + which one’s for you

Here’s how the best communication platforms for healthcare workers stack up side-by-side:

	Best for	Starting price	Top features
Quo	Growing healthcare providers	$23 per user per month	Unlimited calls and texts in the US and Canada, signed BAA agreements, HIPAA-compliant call recording, phone menus and call routing, texting automations and snippets, shared phone numbers, and security features
Spruce Health	Telehealth-heavy practices	$24 per user per month	Video conferencing, two-way texting, auto-replies, VoIP desk phones, IVR phone menus, clinical questionnaires, in-app digital payments, and EHR integrations
Klara	Practices needing deep web chat for patient scheduling	Contact for pricing	Digital intake automations, provider collaboration inbox, AI-powered message routing, EHR integrations, and internal notes and mentions
TigerConnect	Hospitals needing clinical communication tools	Contact for pricing	Priority messaging and escalations, physiological monitor integrations, encrypted browser-based patient portal, and mobile and desktop apps
PerfectServe	Complex clinical workflows requiring intelligent routing	Contact for pricing	Dynamic Intelligent Routing®, 250+ EHR and lab integrations, secure messaging and video, emergency alerts, legacy PBX phone system integrations
Podium	Dental offices and medical spas needing texting automations	Contact for pricing	Unified inbox, AI assistant, payment processing, website contact forms, social messaging, and review management and tracking
Televox	Automating patient outreach across multiple channels	Contact for pricing	Omnichannel outreach, virtual agent for inbound inquiries, outbound reminders and automated follow-ups, inbound self-service workflows, and multilingual support

We’ll start with one of the strongest contenders for small and growing providers:

1. Quo: Best healthcare communication platform for growing healthcare providers

Pros

• Unlimited calls and texts in the US and Canada
• One free local or toll-free number per user
• Mobile app
• Secure call recordings
• Team collaboration features like internal threads and shared numbers
• Auto-attendant functions or IVR for inbound calls
• Granular user access and permission controls

Cons

• Can’t verify accounts through two-factor authentication*

*Nearly all virtual phone numbers share this problem. For safety reasons, companies like Facebook, Uber, and Google rarely let you authenticate accounts through a virtual phone number.

Quo is a medical office phone system designed for growing healthcare practices. You can call and text in a HIPAA-compliant manner and manage patient communication in one secure platform.

You can use Quo for both patient and team communication. Shared numbers mean care isn’t tied to one person’s phone. Anyone on the team can pick up, respond, and keep things moving when communicating over calls and texts. 

Need to loop in a colleague mid-call? Hand it off through a call transfer. You can also use internal threads and mentions to discuss patient context with your team without the patient seeing it.

Each Quo plan comes with texting automations to speed up repetitive tasks. You can use scheduled texts for appointment confirmations, reminders, and no-show recovery messages. Or you can create SMS templates for healthcare and billing questions, called snippets. That way, you don’t need to type the same responses to FAQs.

Need help managing high call volumes? Easily add authorized personnel, like office managers, so you never miss calls. Then, use the drag-and-drop call flow builder to set up custom phone menus to control how calls are routed. For example, you can send rescheduling requests to office staff and emergency calls to on-call providers.

You can even build call flows for different situations to manage patient expectations. For example, you might create a holiday call flow so patients know ahead of time when your office is out for the holidays.

Each Quo plan comes with security features like:

• Audit logs. Check who took calls at what time.
• Data encryption. We support data at rest with AES-256 and data in transit with TLS 1.2+ — the same standards used by financial institutions.
• SOC 2 compliance. Our security standards receive regular monitoring and auditing from an accredited third-party organization.
• Access controls. Decide who on your team should operate as an Owner, Admin, or Member. That way, if someone leaves or loses their work phone, you can instantly revoke access to sensitive patient information.

See for yourself why Quo is the #1 small business phone solution in customer satisfaction on G2. Sign up for a seven-day free trial and activate a Business or Scale plan. Then, you can request a BAA in under 15 seconds.

Quo pricing

Quo’s pricing was designed to scale alongside your business, with HIPAA compliance on the Business and Scale plans:

• Starter: $15 per user per month for unlimited calls and texts in Canada and the US, voicemail transcriptions, HIPAA-compliant call recording, access to 10 free calls per month with our AI voice agent, Sona, and more
• Business: $23 per user per month for HIPAA compliance, phone menus, analytics and reporting, call transfers, custom ring groups, and more
• Scale: $35 per user per month for AI call tags, inbound phone support, dedicated onboarding, and priority chat and email support

2. Spruce Health: Best for telehealth-heavy practices

Pros

• Video calls for telehealth
• Offers in-app digital payments
• Clinical questionnaires for patients
• EHR integrations and API access

Cons

• Phone menus require an upgrade
• Time-based call routing requires an upgrade
• Need to upgrade to the most expensive plan for simple integrations, like Calendly

Spruce Health is a healthcare communication app for primary care and mental health professionals. It lets you call, text, and set up video meetings on the mobile app or on your VoIP desk phones. You can also use Spruce Health to collect clinical questionnaires, then securely forward the results via team chat.

You can also create self-service workflows through the Spruce Health patient portal. Patients can download the app or log on to the browser to access features like:

• Secure messaging
• Video calling
• Clinical questionnaire
• File sharing
• In-app digital payments, with an upgrade

But this requires patients to create an account — which some patients might not. This limits who you can reach with in-app messaging while maintaining HIPAA compliance.

As one reviewer said about Spruce’s messaging portal:

“The biggest downside here is that clients MUST make an account for messages to be HIPAA compliant. I get clients who text the number but won’t make an account. Also, when they do make an account, any messages they sent prior do not show up for easy archiving. I can send an invite, but many do not make an account, limiting its functionality.” — G2

Spruce Health pricing

You can pick from two Spruce Health pricing plans:

• Basic: $24 per user per month for video conferencing, two-way texting, auto-replies, user access controls, e-fax, and customer support
• Communicator: $49 per user per month for VoIP desk phones, call routing, IVR phone menus, after-hours triage, integrations, API access, and bulk messaging

3. Klara: Best for practices needing deep web chat for patient scheduling

Pros

• Integrates with over nine EHRs
• Offers web chat for patient self-service
• Offers telehealth and provider collaboration features

Cons

• Pricing not listed publicly, some users report it as high
• Doesn’t provide a phone number for calling
• Some users report technical glitches
• Some users report struggling to connect with a human support rep

Klara is a patient engagement platform for larger healthcare organizations. With it, you can:

• Let patients book appointments via HIPAA-compliant web chat
• Set appointment reminders and send texts before and after appointments
• Automate digital intakes so your front desk staff can focus on more complex patient interactions
• Send incoming messages to the right staff member with an AI-powered routing tool

Klara also offers a provider collaboration module that acts as a communication inbox for your team. This gives you a shared inbox and lets you discuss care with your team behind the scenes.

But you should know Klara isn’t a dedicated phone system because it can’t make or receive phone calls — just texts. It’s also missing phone system features like analytics and call routing. So you’ll need a separate phone solution like Quo to use Klara for phone-based healthcare communications.

Klara pricing

Klara doesn’t offer public pricing. You must contact sales for a customized quote.

4. TigerConnect: Best clinical communication tool for hospitals

Pros

• Supports secure messaging, voice, and video
• Built-in online patient scheduling
• Physiological monitor integrations
• Priority messaging and messaging escalations to the next available provider
• Mobile and desktop apps available

Cons

• Pricing not available, users report high costs
• Some users report long-term, limiting contracts
• Some users find the interface to be outdated and difficult to use

TigerConnect is a clinical collaboration tool for hospitals and larger health systems. With it, you can communicate with both internal care teams and patients. It offers secure messaging, patient transfers, and integrations with HIPAA-compliant scheduling software. There are also modules for priority messaging and escalations — useful in high-stakes environments.

With TigerConnect, patients don’t need to download an app to send messages. The Patient Engagement module lets you text them a link, which opens an encrypted page in their browser. 

Just keep in mind that TigerConnect doesn’t publish pricing online. This makes it hard to budget for. It may also take you longer to get off the ground. According to G2, for example, it may take two months to implement the platform.

Some users report getting locked into contracts, even after requesting to cancel their accounts.

See for yourself:

“My business had completely crashed, and I was no longer operating my business. I asked if I could drop my licenses from 8 to 1 or 2 due to me having to let go all of my employees. I was told due to the management change, I could not adjust my licenses whatsoever. I think this is completely unfair due to me being told before, on the phone, that I can drop or add licenses whenever I needed to.” — G2

TigerConnect pricing

TigerConnect doesn’t list pricing online. But it does say that it “offers a fixed-price, fixed-quantity subscription model.” The only way to get a quote for your team is to contact sales.

5. PerfectServe: Best for complex clinical workflows requiring intelligent routing

Pros

• 250+ integrations with EHRs, labs, radiology tools, and more
• Dynamic intelligent routing for patient communication
• Works on legacy devices, including pagers

Cons

• Pricing not listed
• Very few online user reviews
• Setup might require working directly with PerfectServe’s implementation team

PerfectServe is HIPAA-compliant VoIP software primarily for hospitals and post-acute care teams. With it, you get the same basic features as TigerConnect, like messaging, video, calling, and emergency alerts.

But what sets it apart is its Dynamic Intelligent Routing^® feature.This helps staff reach the right experts more easily without needing to memorize schedules. Let’s say you have a nurse who needs to contact a patient’s on-call doctor. Dynamic Intelligent Routing will:

• Pull information like the patient’s name, room number, and active care team
• Find the department the doctor is working in
• Check schedules to route the call to the available on-call provider
• Check the provider’s preferred contact method so the nurse knows whether to call or text

PerfectServe also integrates with legacy PBX phone systems. This can be useful if you haven’t switched to cloud-based phones yet.

But as you might imagine, PerfectServe can be complex for smaller practices. You may need to work with its implementation team to configure routing rules, workflows, and schedules. This could lead to long implementation timelines — not ideal for growing teams.

PerfectServe pricing

Like many platforms on this list, PerfectServe doesn’t publish pricing online. Your only option is to contact sales to set up an initial demo.

6. Podium: Best for dental offices and medical spas needing texting automations

Pros

• Automated review requests and follow-ups through an AI assistant
• Payment processing features
• Unified inboxes for calls, texts, and voicemails

Cons

• Not specifically made for healthcare providers
• Pricing not publicly listed for healthcare
• Can’t export contacts from Podium to other platforms

Podium is a marketing and reputation management software. It offers BAA agreements, so healthcare providers can use the platform to improve the patient experience and grow their practices. 

With Podium, you can set up texting automations for follow-ups, reminders, and billing needs. It also offers tools for patient acquisition, like website contact forms and social messaging.

Just know some of these features require Podium’s AI assistant, which is only available on the most expensive plan. Other tools, like shared inboxes and high-volume messaging, require upgrades or add-ons. Since Podium doesn’t list pricing online, you’ll need to contact sales to get a quote.

The most serious drawback: you won’t be able to export your contacts if you leave. Your patients and potential leads are effectively trapped inside Podium unless you have a separate CRM.

As one reviewer says:

“What I found after I started using Podium is this: you cannot export your own data from their system. So anything that you put in, like contacts, cannot be exported out.“ — G2

Podium pricing

Podium does list its plans online, but it doesn’t provide specific pricing. Here are the features you get on each Podium plan:

• Core: 200+ integrations, basic automations and reporting, forms, texts, calls, and emails, and a built-in phone system if you pay the undisclosed add-on fee
• Pro: Lead capture forms, instant answers and review responses from AI, text-based surveys, lead routing, AI call summaries, and text marketing
• Signature: Advanced branding and customization, fraud alert system, multi-location management, and quarterly business reviews

7. Televox: Best for automating patient outreach across multiple channels

Pros

• Tools for omnichannel patient outreach through voice, SMS, RCS, email, and chat
• AI-powered virtual agent to handle inbound patient inquiries
• Multilingual support across all channels

Cons

• Pricing isn’t listed online and requires a demo
• The platform requires long-term contracts
• No internal care team messaging, clinician-to-clinician communication, or on-call routing

Televox is a patient outreach and engagement platform for doctors’ offices and pharmacies. And unlike most tools on this list, it’s focused entirely on the patient-facing side of healthcare communication.

With Televox, you can set up:

• Outbound reminders
• Automated follow-ups
• Self-service workflows, like prescription refills

Patients can communicate through almost any preferred channel, including RCS, live chat, or email. Plus, you can set up multilingual support to serve non-English-speaking patients.

That said, you’ll need a separate platform to message coworkers, set up on-call routing, or coordinate scheduled visits.

And keep in mind you might need to train patients on how to use the platform. Past users complain that Televox isn’t intuitive. As one user put it:

“Patients would not use it correctly and no-show instead of properly canceling.” — G2 

Televox pricing

Televox doesn’t list pricing online. The only way to get a quote is to contact sales.

How to choose the right healthcare communication platform for your office 

Before evaluating platforms, it helps to get clear on what you actually need.Below are four questions you should ask yourself before building a shortlist:

• Do I need internal care team communication? A patient communication platform? Or both?
• What are my patient communication goals? Do I want to reduce no-shows, manage intakes faster, or automate post-visit follow-ups for patients?
• What does my current tech stack look like, and what gaps am I trying to fill?
• How technical is my team, and how much onboarding time can we realistically handle?

Let’s look at a few other parameters you can use to find the right fit for a healthcare communication platform.

1. Evaluate communication features

Next, you need to decide which tools you need to support patients, healthcare professionals, or both.

Here are the features you should look for in a healthcare communication platform:

• Phone menus and call routing. Phone menus let patients reach the right person or department without going through the front desk first. They can also handle simple requests, like sharing office hours or locations.
• Customizable business hours routing. Set different call flows for when you’re open, closed, or short-staffed. For example, you can automatically route after-hours emergencies to an on-call number.
• Two-way text messaging and automations. Send reminders, confirmations, and follow-up messages that patients and staff can respond to. You can also speed up repetitive outreach with tools like scheduled messages and templates.
• Voicemail transcriptions. Skim missed calls for key information without listening back to full recordings. This can help you triage faster and prioritize callbacks.
• HIPAA-compliant call recording. Store all conversations and treatment discussions on a single, secure platform. This ensures you have clear records of consent in case of disputes or liability claims.
• Mobile app. Let staff handle calls and messages from anywhere. They don’t need a desk to keep in touch with patients or care teams. 
• Reporting and analytics. Evaluate your busiest days, who handles the most calls, and average response times. That way, you can make more informed decisions about staffing and training your team.
• Prompt customer support. Look for a tool that offers live human support, emails, and tickets. It should also offer up-to-date help resources so you can do light troubleshooting on your own.

2. Test the patient experience

A platform is only as good as the experience it creates for your patients. Before committing, run through these questions:

• How easy is it for patients to book?
• Can they access it from mobile devices?
• What features do they offer to support patient safety?
• Is the booking flow intuitive for all patients, including older generations?
• Request a demo and try booking as a patient would. Can you see yourself using the system?

Quo: The best healthcare communication platform for growing healthcare systems

Healthcare communication platforms help replace fragmented communication workflows with a single, connected solution. But picking the right platform depends on whether you need to coordinate your care team, engage your patients, or both.

Whether you need to stay in touch with patients, coordinate your care team, or both, Quo helps small and growing teams hit the ground running. With simple implementation and transparent pricing, you can get started in days, not months.

Stay in touch with patients and teammates with unlimited calls and texts in the US and Canada. Then, speed up texting with automations, reduce missed calls, and stay accessible with shared numbers. You also get one free number per user on your account. These could be toll-free numbers or local numbers for familiarity. 

Finally, get secure apps that work on any device. That way, your team can stay connected with patients and each other, whether they’re at a desk, on the floor, or working remotely.

Sign up for a seven-day free trial of Quo and start building better patient relationships today.

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