# Zoom Waiting Rooms

Zoom Waiting Rooms allow patients to hold in a virtual waiting area when they join a telehealth session, until the clinician admits them. This provides a more professional patient experience and prevents patients from entering a session before the clinician is ready.

## Why use waiting rooms?

Waiting rooms are strongly recommended for telehealth because they:

* Prevent patients from seeing a session before the clinician is prepared
* Allow clinicians to control exactly when the patient joins
* Enable running back-to-back appointments without patients overlapping
* Provide a space to display a welcome message to patients while they wait

## Enabling waiting rooms

Waiting rooms are configured at the Zoom account level, not within Welkin. To enable:

1. Log in to your Zoom for Healthcare account at [zoom.us](https://zoom.us)
2. Click your profile icon → **Settings**
3. Under the **Security** section, find **Waiting Room**
4. Toggle **Waiting Room** to **On**
5. Select who is placed in the waiting room:
   * **All participants** – recommended for healthcare; every attendee waits until admitted
   * **Participants not in your account** – patients (who typically don't have Zoom accounts) wait while clinicians (with Zoom accounts) can join directly

### Organization-level settings

Zoom Admin can enforce waiting room settings for all users:

1. Log in to the Zoom Admin portal
2. Navigate to **Account Management → Account Settings → Security**
3. Enable **Waiting Room** and lock the setting so individual users cannot turn it off

This ensures all clinicians in your organization use waiting rooms consistently.

## Customizing the waiting room

You can personalize the waiting room with a message or logo:

1. In Zoom Settings → **Security → Waiting Room**
2. Click **Customize Waiting Room**
3. Add:
   * A **title** (e.g., "Welcome to \[Organization Name] Telehealth")
   * A **message** (e.g., "Your provider will be with you shortly. Please have your questions ready.")
   * Your organization **logo**
4. Save changes

## Admitting patients from the waiting room

When a patient joins and is placed in the waiting room, the clinician sees a notification:

1. In the Zoom session, click **Participants** in the toolbar
2. See the list of participants in the waiting room
3. Click **Admit** next to the patient's name
4. The patient is moved from the waiting room into the active session

You can also use **Admit All** if there are multiple approved participants waiting.

## Sending a message to a waiting patient

While the patient is in the waiting room, you can send them a message:

1. In the Participants panel, hover over the patient's name
2. Click **Chat**
3. Type your message (e.g., "I'll be with you in 2 minutes")
4. The patient sees the message in their waiting room screen

## Returning a participant to the waiting room

If you need to have a private conversation (e.g., with another clinician) and want to temporarily remove the patient:

1. In the Participants panel, hover over the patient's name
2. Click **More → Put in Waiting Room**
3. Re-admit them when ready


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