How SendRight works, step by step

1. Files

Add the documents: PDFs exported from your clinical or practice software, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, photos and scans (JPEG, PNG, TIFF and more), or any other file. SendRight checks each file by its contents, not just its name, and refuses programs and files that already have a password.

Choose why the records can be released: patient request, the patient's care, transfer of care, a signed authority, a subpoena, a police notice, a serious threat or another law. For anyone other than the patient or a treating provider, SendRight asks you to confirm the release was approved, and the file must be password protected. You can add the requestor's reference number so they can match the email to their file.

2. Protect

Tick Require a password to open (AES-256). SendRight generates an easy-to-read passphrase, such as MapleKettleOrbit42, or you can type your own.

• PDFs get AES-256 PDF encryption.
• Word, Excel and PowerPoint get Office's own password protection, so they open in Office, including the free phone apps.
• Photos and scans are made into one PDF (or one each), at full quality, then protected.
• Anything else goes in an AES-256 zip. You can also put everything in one zip, though recipients on Windows then need the free 7-Zip.

3. Recipient

Enter the recipient's email and tick that you've checked it against the patient file or the signed request. SendRight looks up both email systems and works out how big each email can be, allowing for the extra size email encoding adds plus a safety margin: about 24.5 MB for Microsoft 365, 17.5 MB from Google, and a safe 7 MB for unknown systems. You can change it if you know the recipient accepts more.

Then choose how to send: from your connected Microsoft 365 or Google account, one email at a time in Outlook or your email app, or by hand.

4. Prepare

SendRight makes protected copies in their own folder, one folder per document. Big PDFs are split by pages into parts that fit one email each. Every protected file is reopened to check the password works, and that nothing opens without it.

5. Send

With a connected account, you see who it's going to and each email's file, then one click sends them all, with progress for each and copies in your Sent folder. If the connection drops, it carries on from where it stopped without sending anything twice. With Outlook (classic), SendRight opens each email with its file attached for you to check and send.

Each email tells the recipient how to open the file, and that the password will come separately.

6. Password

Give the password a different way to the email:

• a secure link in a separate email that shows the password a set number of times and then expires. It's the default for insurers, solicitors and other organisations, which work from shared inboxes, and whose staff shouldn't have to give a personal mobile;
• a text message to a patient's mobile through our Australian SMS gateway (paid add-on);
• the same secure link in Signal or WhatsApp, sent from the practice's phone. The password itself never goes in a chat;
• a phone call or in person, with a read-out spelling.

SendRight asks you to confirm the mobile number or the person's identity first.

7. Clean up

Tick what was sent and permanently delete SendRight's copies. Then click Copy record and paste the disclosure record into the patient's or client's file: date and time, recipient, their reference, why it was released, how each document was protected, how the password was given, and who sent it.