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For health and aesthetic clinics

WhatsApp for health and aesthetic clinics: triage, confidentiality and aftercare

For practices and clinics in medicine, aesthetics, psychology, nutrition and physiotherapy that serve patients on Meta's official API: how to split chats by specialty, keep patients in ongoing care with your team only, read photos and voice notes with a recorded consent, and follow up after procedures, with each professional inside their own council's rules.

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The problem

One front desk, several councils and plenty of sensitive data

In a clinic with more than one specialty, the same number hears from someone booking a facial, someone moving a physio session and the psychologist's patient writing on a hard day. The front desk answers everything in arrival order, and each person's chat is open to whoever is holding the phone.

  • Each professional answers to a council: in Brazil, a physician may publish consultation fees and campaign discounts; a nutritionist or a biomedical aesthetician may not use promotions as advertising; a psychologist may not use the service price as advertising. One broadcast to "all patients" mixes those rules.
  • Patients send photos and voice notes: a photo of their skin, a lab result, three minutes of audio describing how they feel. Replying "I can't see that, please type" pushes them away; feeding it to an AI without permission exposes health data, which Brazil's LGPD treats as sensitive personal data.
  • Confidentiality and a bot answering everyone do not mix: the Psychologist Code of Ethics makes professional secrecy a duty, and someone in therapy should neither get automatic replies nor land in a queue where anyone can answer.
  • Aftercare depends on memory: the day-three instructions and the reassessment invitation go out when someone remembers, and the patient who had a reaction looks elsewhere.

InvestCRM does not do the ethics part for you: it does not check templates against any council's rules. What it does is separate audiences, chats and automations, so each professional speaks the way their rules allow. The setups below show how.

Setups in InvestCRM

Building the clinic's WhatsApp one piece at a time

Names in bold are the on-screen labels (in Portuguese). Each setup states its minimum plan: only the queue with departments needs Business. How the agent works inside is covered in AI customer service.

From the Business plan

1. Triage by specialty, with a department and a reply deadline

Starts when

Someone writes for the first time and the AI agent, set to the Recepcionista (receptionist) profile, works out whether the topic is medicine, aesthetics, nutrition, physiotherapy or psychology.

How to set it up

  1. In Settings → Atendimento humano, create one department per specialty (Aesthetics, Nutrition, Physiotherapy, Psychology) and, under Editar pessoas (edit people), add whoever handles that schedule.
  2. Fill in the Horários de atendimento (business hours) and the Feriados e dias fechados (holidays and closed days): the first-reply deadline only runs during clinic hours.
  3. In Settings → Agente de IA, create the agent with the Recepcionista profile and, on the Behavior tab, add one Transferir para setor/pessoa (transfer) skill per specialty. Besides handing over the chat, it applies a label to the contact, such as "Nutrition patient".
  4. Under Outras regras ou restrições (other rules), write what the agent never does: comment on symptoms or exams, quote fees that are not in the knowledge base, promise results.
  5. Under Prazo e lembretes (deadline and reminders), set Responder em até (minutos) (reply within, 15 by default) and how many times the team gets nudged.
  6. Connect the agent to the chats: in Automations → Básicas, use Configurar com IA (set up with AI) on the Resposta padrão (default reply). The Atendimento com IA (AI service) block starts with one of the account's agents already picked; check that it is the Recepcionista and publish. Without this step the agent exists but answers no one, and this automation takes 1 of the plan's active automation slots.

What happens next

The chat reaches the Fila de atendimento (support queue) with the reason and the department. Whoever clicks Assumir (take over) owns it, the deadline only ends when someone actually replies, and the Observação interna (internal note) keeps what was agreed out of the patient's view. The department organizes the queue, but it does not hide the chat from the rest of the team.

InvestCRM screen: the "Fila de atendimento" list with the Waiting, Already taken and Unassigned counters at the top; on each row, the handoff reason, the department label, an unassigned flag and the buttons to open or take over the chat
Real InvestCRM screen, with sample data.

From the Start plan

2. Patients in ongoing care talk to people only

Starts when

A patient starts an ongoing treatment (therapy, nutrition follow-up, physio sessions) and the clinic decides they no longer chat with the AI.

How to set it up

  1. Create the label "In ongoing care" and apply it on the Contacts screen, one patient at a time or several at once.
  2. In Settings → Agente de IA, on the Contatos que a IA nunca atende (contacts the AI never serves) card, pick that label. Their messages keep arriving in the inbox; the AI block, the agents, the AI follow-up and the waiting notice stay silent.
  3. So that no automated flow talks to them either (menu, default reply), turn on the option to run no automation at all for those contacts. With it on, sequences stop for them too, without notice: the aftercare sequence in setup 4 will not reach anyone with the label. Broadcasts your team sends still reach them, so remove the group with + Excluir público (exclude audience) when the subject is not for them.
  4. Invite each professional as a Colaborador (collaborator): they answer chats and work the pipeline, while templates, automations and broadcasts stay with Editor-level users.

What happens next

Anyone in therapy or treatment writes in and a person replies. Every access level, Leitor (viewer) included, can read every chat on the account: anyone who should not see patients should not be invited to it.

From the Start plan

3. Patient photos and voice notes read by the AI, with recorded consent

Starts when

A patient sends a photo of a spot, a lab result or a voice note about how they feel, and the AI agent connected to the Resposta padrão (default reply) is the one replying (last step of setup 1, which also works on Start).

How to set it up

  1. Before switching it on, settle the legal basis with the clinic's lawyer: the patient's specific, prominent consent (LGPD, art. 11, I), for example through a Pergunta (question) block before the Atendimento com IA block, so only people who say they agree go on to the AI; or health protection in a procedure carried out by health professionals (art. 11, II, f). A line in the privacy notice is not consent. Photos and voice notes go to OpenAI or Anthropic, companies outside Brazil: the notice must mention that international transfer (arts. 33 onward).
  2. Also check your council's rules and the WhatsApp policy on health information (see Rules) before asking for exams or photos over WhatsApp, and keep exam requests and diagnoses out of templates.
  3. In Settings → Agente de IA, turn on Entender fotos e áudios (understand photos and audio) and read the notice. It only switches on with the "Li e concordo" (I agree) box ticked, and the system records who did it and when.
  4. With an OpenAI key, the AI listens to voice notes of up to 15 minutes and sees photos. With an Anthropic key, Claude sees photos but does not listen to audio: it asks the person to type.
  5. In the agent's rules, restate what the clinic expects: describe what arrived and pass it to the team, without interpreting exams. The AI is already instructed not to give a technical opinion on what it sees.
  6. Check the Limite diário de chamadas (daily call limit, 500 by default): each photo seen and each voice note heard counts as 1.

What happens next

Patients never hear "I can't see that", and the team gets the chat with its context. Received files open in the inbox only through a signed link that expires, and reading costs come out of the clinic's own AI key. With the option off, the AI asks people to type; if a photo has a caption, it replies to the caption.

InvestCRM screen: AI settings with the OpenAI key field, the GPT-4o mini model, the Limite diário de chamadas set to 500 and the Entender fotos e áudios switch turned off, with a reminder to add the key first
Real InvestCRM screen, with sample data.

From the Start plan

4. Aftercare instructions and reassessment as a sequence

Starts when

The procedure ends and the front desk enrolls the patient from the Inscrito nas Sequências (sequences) panel in the inbox, or a flow does it with the Inscrever na sequência (enroll in sequence) action.

How to set it up

  1. Submit the cuidados_pos_procedimento (Utility) and convite_reavaliacao (Marketing) templates from the templates section. Inside a sequence, every template variable is filled with the contact's name, which is why both use only {{1}}.
  2. In Sequências, create "Aftercare" with two steps: the first with a 3-day delay and the care template; the second, 30 days after the first, with the invitation. Delays are set in hours or days, and a sequence holds up to 50 steps.
  3. Publish it. The sequence lives under Sequências, apart from automations: the plan's limit on active automations only counts flows under Automations.
  4. If the patient has a complication, open the chat and use ⏸ Pausar automações (pause automations): the next steps are held until someone resumes them.
  5. Keep preparo_procedimento, which carries the date in {{2}}, out of the sequence and out of the chat's send-template option, because both fill every variable with the name. Send it as a broadcast to the day's label, such as "Procedure tomorrow", mapping {{2}} to the field where the schedule import put the date (for example Campo 4, field 4) under Variáveis do modelo → campo do contato (template variables to contact field).

What happens next

The day-three instructions go out even with the 24-hour window closed, because it is an approved template. While the chat is with a human agent, the step is postponed instead of talking over the team, and anyone who types STOP (or SAIR, PARAR) leaves the sequence right away.

Message templates

Four templates, each with its category and its council

Outside the 24-hour window, only a Meta-approved template can start the chat. Marketing templates carry the registration of whoever performs the service, and each one fits a specific council. Replace the bracketed parts before submitting them.

  • Preparation instructions

    Utility

    Template name: preparo_procedimento

    Hi {{1}}. Your procedure is booked for {{2}}. The preparation instructions our team gave you still apply; if you have any questions, reply to this message before your appointment.

    • I read them
    • I have a question

    Why this category

    It refers to a service the person booked and pitches nothing. Meta defines utility as a message specific to the user with no promotional intent; adding "check out our new treatment" at the end would push the template into marketing.

  • Care after the procedure

    Utility

    Template name: cuidados_pos_procedimento

    Hi {{1}}. It has been a few days since your appointment. How are you feeling? If you notice anything different from what our team explained, reply here and a professional will get back to you.

    • I'm fine
    • I want to talk

    Why this category

    It follows up on that person's own appointment, with no invitation to another service. It has a single variable because, inside a sequence, InvestCRM fills every variable with the contact's name.

  • Discount campaign (physicians only)

    Marketing

    Template name: campanha_checkup

    Hi {{1}}! This month [Clinic], CRM-[UF] registration no. [number], runs a check-up campaign with a reduced fee for [specialty] consultations. Fees and payment options at the front desk. Dr. [name], MÉDICO, CRM-[UF] [number], RQE [number]. Technical director: [name], CRM-[UF] [number], RQE [number]. To stop receiving campaigns, reply STOP.

    • Book now

    Why this category

    A promotion is marketing in any format. CFM Resolution 2,336/2023 allows campaign discounts, with no tie-in sales or prizes, requires the CRM number with the word MÉDICO plus the RQE (art. 4) and, on a clinic's material, its CRM registration and the Technical Medical Director with CRM and, where required, RQE (art. 5). This text does not work for nutritionists, biomedical aestheticians or psychologists.

  • Reassessment invitation (no price)

    Marketing

    Template name: convite_reavaliacao

    Hi {{1}}. It has been a while since your last follow-up. If you would like a reassessment, tap the button and the front desk will look for a time. [Name], [profession], [council]-[region] [number]. To stop receiving invitations, reply STOP.

    • Book a reassessment

    Why this category

    Calling back someone with no appointment booked is marketing, even without a price. The text mentions no fees, promotions or results and uses no body images, which keeps it within CFN, CFP and COFFITO rules, and it carries the registration of whoever provides care.

What it costs

A month of messages for a multi-specialty clinic

Example with one number: preparation and care instructions as utility, campaigns and reassessment invitations as marketing, and front desk, queue and agent chats inside the 24-hour window, billed as service. Meta charges per delivered message, straight to the payment method on the clinic's account.

Sample bill using Meta's official rate card, Brazilian number
What forCategoryMessages a monthBilledPrice per messageCost for the month
Preparation and aftercare instructionsUtility300300R$ 0.0350R$ 10.50
Campaigns and reassessment invitationsMarketing120120R$ 0.3217R$ 38.60
Front desk, queue and AI agent chatsService (support)1,600600R$ 0.0350R$ 21.00
Estimated monthly total, paid straight to MetaR$ 70.10

The first 1,000 service messages of each number, every month, are free.

If the utility templates in this bill were classified as marketing, the same month would go from R$ 70.10 to R$ 156.11.

Splitting the audience by professional also changes the bill: a campaign sent only to the physician's patients costs less than the same campaign to the whole base, and it never reaches patients served under a council that forbids that text.

The volumes are an example to show the math, not data from a customer.

Meta's BRL rate card for Brazilian numbers, effective Oct 1, 2026, checked on Oct 9, 2026. See the rate card at Meta

Run your own numbers in the calculator →

Industry rules

What each council asks of a message, and what the system does

In a clinic with several professions, the rules of whoever performs the service apply. Below is what weighs on WhatsApp under Brazilian rules, with a link to the official text. Template and chat content remain the responsibility of the clinic and its technical lead.

  • Medicine: WhatsApp counts as an owned social network

    CFM Resolution 2,336/2023 lists WhatsApp among a physician's own social networks (art. 8, § 1). Every piece carries the name, the CRM number with the word MÉDICO and, for specialists, the RQE (art. 4); a clinic's piece shows the facility name with its CRM registration and the Technical Medical Director with their CRM number and, where required, the RQE (art. 5). It may state consultation fees and payment options and announce campaign discounts (art. 9, VI and VIII); it may not promise or imply good results (art. 11, XII) or advertise free medical services at a private practice, which the rule treats as unfair competition (art. 11, XVI and § 4, c).

    In InvestCRM

    InvestCRM does not check template text against CFM rules: Meta only reviews its own. Put the CRM and RQE in the template itself, as in the check-up campaign, and send discount campaigns only to contacts labeled as the physician's patients.

    Source: CFM Resolution 2,336/2023

  • Psychology: secrecy, and price kept out of advertising

    The Psychologist Professional Code of Ethics (CFP Resolution 010/2005) makes professional secrecy a duty (art. 9). When promoting their services by any means, a psychologist states their full name and CRP number, does not use the service price as advertising and makes no categorical forecasts of results (art. 20, a, d and e).

    In InvestCRM

    The label picked under Contatos que a IA nunca atende takes therapy patients away from the AI and, if you want, from every automation. A queue department does not hide the chat from the team: invite only people who need to see patients and do not write session content into fields or notes.

    Source: Psychologist Code of Ethics (CFP Resolution 010/2005)

  • Nutrition: no promotions and no body images

    The Nutritionist Code of Ethics and Conduct (CFN Resolution 599/2018) bars using fees, promotions and prize draws as advertising (art. 57), claiming exclusivity or certainty of results (art. 56), and showing body images, one's own or anyone else's, that credit results to a product, technique or protocol, even with written permission (art. 58).

    In InvestCRM

    The template header accepts an image, video or document: for nutrition, use the logo or no image at all. Before publishing a broadcast, check the audience by label; the screen shows how many contacts will receive it.

    Source: Nutritionist Code of Ethics (CFN Resolution 599/2018)

  • Physiotherapy: consent, name, registration and date when publishing patients

    COFFITO Resolution 532/2021, which amended the Physiotherapy Code of Ethics, covers publishing images, texts or audio of patients or of the care given: it requires the Free and Informed Consent Form first (arts. 1 and 2) and, on those posts, the professional's name, registration number and the date of the images, texts and audio (art. 4). Sensationalism and promises of infallible results are banned (art. 3).

    In InvestCRM

    No InvestCRM field adds the date or the CREFITO number to a message by itself: write them into the template. Photos patients send stay in the chat; the consent form for publishing one of their images remains outside the system.

    Source: COFFITO Resolution 532/2021

  • Aesthetics performed by biomedical professionals: no packages or promotions

    The Biomedical Professional Code of Ethics (CFBM Resolution 330/2020) requires, in all advertising, the names of the professional and of the company with their council registrations (art. 9) and calls the promotion of service packages, promotions and special prices improper commercialization (art. 11, sole paragraph). It also bars wording that promises or suggests results without proof (art. 11, b).

    In InvestCRM

    The system does not know who performed each procedure. Label patients, for example "Biomedical aesthetics" and "Medical aesthetics", and use + Excluir público to leave the first group out of the discount campaign.

    Source: Biomedical Code of Ethics (CFBM Resolution 330/2020)

  • Photos, voice notes and exams are sensitive data

    Under Brazil's LGPD, health-related data is sensitive personal data (art. 5, II). Outside the exemptions in art. 11, processing requires specific, prominent consent for specific purposes (art. 11, I), and blanket authorizations are void (art. 8, § 4).

    In InvestCRM

    AI reading of photos and audio starts switched off; to turn it on, someone on the account accepts the notice and the system records who and when. In the reminders it writes, the AI is barred from repeating personal or sensitive data. InvestCRM holds no LGPD seal: data processing is described in the privacy policy.

    Source: General Data Protection Law (Law 13,709/2018)

  • Health information in the WhatsApp policy

    Section 3 of the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy says not to use WhatsApp for telemedicine or to send or request any health related information when applicable regulations prohibit sending it to systems that do not meet heightened requirements for health data.

    In InvestCRM

    InvestCRM does not know what your profession's rules allow. Before asking for exams, photos of lesions or diagnoses over WhatsApp, confirm it with your lawyer under your council's rules and LGPD art. 11, and keep those requests out of templates.

    Source: WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy, section 3

  • A bot always with a way out to a person

    The WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy accepts automation inside the 24-hour window as long as there are prompt, clear escalation paths, such as a transfer to a human agent, a phone number or an email. The same policy forbids passing information from one customer's chat to another customer.

    In InvestCRM

    On Business, the agent's transfer skill and the Encaminhar para atendimento humano (hand off to a human) block put the chat in the queue. On Start, with no queue, write the front desk phone number into the agent's rules for anyone who asks for a person.

    Source: WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy

Rules checked against the official sources on Oct 18, 2026. This is not legal advice: when in doubt, ask your professional council.

Plan

Start for a private practice, Business for a clinic with a queue

For a private practice or a small clinic, Start covers setups 2, 3 and 4: the AI answering with 1 agent through the default reply, which takes 1 of the plan's 2 active automations, the label for patients in ongoing care, photo and audio reading, the aftercare sequence and 1,000 broadcast messages a month for campaigns, invitations and preparation notices. It includes 1,000 contacts and you plus 1 person.

When there are several specialties and more people at the front desk, Business unlocks the human support queue with departments, deadlines and reminders, the agent's transfer to each department and 5 AI agents. It fits you plus 3 people and 5,000 contacts.

Meta messages and AI usage are billed separately: Meta charges per delivered message, and OpenAI or Anthropic charge the clinic's own key.

InvestCRM plans: price, limits and features of each one
FeatureGrátisStartBusinessEnterprise
Price per monthR$ 0R$ 147R$ 297R$ 597
Yearly (35% off)R$ 0R$ 1,146.60 a year (same as R$ 95.55 a month)R$ 2,316.60 a year (same as R$ 193.05 a month)R$ 4,656.60 a year (same as R$ 388.05 a month)
People on the accountJust youYou plus 1You plus 3You plus 15
Contacts included1001,0005,000Unlimited
AI agents1, test chat only15Unlimited
Active automationsNot included21050
Broadcast messages per monthNot included1,000UnlimitedUnlimited
Human handoff with queues and departmentsNot includedNot includedIncludedIncluded

See all plans and pricing →

Questions

Questions from whoever runs the clinic's schedule

Can the AI book appointments in the clinic's calendar?

Only when connected to a calendar. The Calendário skill only helps the agent understand dates such as "tomorrow" and "Friday"; booking needs the Consultar sistema externo (API) (external system) skill pointing to a scheduling system with an API. For dentistry there is the Odonto Invest integration, explained in WhatsApp for dental clinics.

Our psychologist replies from the phone. Does the AI stop?

It can, with Coexistence and the "Pausar a IA quando um atendente responder (inclusive pelo celular)" option (pause the AI when an agent replies, phone included) in Settings → Atendimento humano. It ships switched off and works even without the Business queue. In the time for the AI to come back on its own, 0 means it only returns when someone clicks Devolver à IA (return to AI).

Can the agent quote the price of a procedure?

Yes, if the price is in a knowledge base ticked for it and the rules of whoever provides care allow it. The CFM lets physicians state consultation fees; the CFP and the CFN do not allow price as advertising. When in doubt, write in the agent's rules that price requests go to the front desk.

Do I need a WhatsApp number for each professional?

No. Each InvestCRM account has one number, and one account serves the whole clinic: professionals join as team members, each one's patients get a label and, on Business, each specialty becomes a queue department. A number per professional only makes sense if each one wants their own account, with their own subscription.

Keep reading

More for setting up the clinic

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