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

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