n8n
Intake in n8n
Sample data. Valisthea Psychiatry is a fictional practice, so every name and number is synthetic.
Every inquiry has to be read, and too often someone finds out late that the person lives in another state, is too young or is already a patient. I built an n8n workflow that checks each inquiry as it arrives and gives it one status with the reasons.
209
ready, 60 need info, 8 urgent
- The problem
- Every inquiry needs sorting: ready, needs info, not a fit, or urgent.
- The result
- 209 ready, 60 need info, 8 urgent.
What it does
- Someone fills in the form on the website.
- First it checks for an emergency or crisis words. If it finds them, the person sees the 988 line on screen at once.
- If it is not urgent, it checks the details and gives back the full list of anything missing or wrong.
- It checks for a repeat inquiry or an existing patient, then for Oregon, age 6 or older and a provider who takes their plan. If the provider they asked for cannot see them, it suggests up to five who can.
- Each inquiry ends with one status and plain English reasons in a sheet the team works in.
- An overdue row is emailed to the intake lead, then to the CEO. At 7 AM the intake lead gets a short summary of what is open, overdue and urgent.
What keeps it safe
- It never books anyone and never calls anyone. The only thing it sends a patient is the 988 line on an urgent inquiry.
- Urgent is checked first, before anything else can fail, and a person is emailed. Each email is tried 3 times.
- A typo in a plan name no longer turns anyone away. The plan is a dropdown, a small typo is recognised, and anything unclear goes to needs info for a person.
- The team's columns for status, assignee and notes are never written over.
How I tested it
- 525 made-up inquiries gave 209 ready, 60 need info and 8 urgent, and every result matched the answer key. 57 checks, 0 failed.
- 88 live checks of the urgent path passed, with the 988 text on screen in 0.04 to 0.12 seconds, before any other work ran.
- With the data tables unavailable, the urgent alert and the 988 email still went out.
Built with
- n8n
- Google Sheets
- Gmail
Want one like this for your business?
Tell me what is slowing your team down. I will tell you what to automate, and what not to.