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The phone number Rivet provisioned for you at signup is meant to be permanent. Once you’ve put it on a business card, told a few clients, forwarded your existing line to it, and pointed it at your EHR’s intake form, changing it is real work — for you and for your clients. That said, there are a few situations where the swap is worth it. This page covers when, why, and how.

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When changing is worth it

A few legitimate reasons:
  • You picked an area code that doesn’t match your practice’s community. You signed up while travelling and the system grabbed a 416 number, but your practice is in Halifax. A 902 number reads warmer to a Haligonian client when you call them back.
  • The number you picked turns out to share a suffix with a local pizza place (it happens). Wrong-number calls drown out the real ones.
  • You’re rebranding. New practice name, new phone number, fresh start.
  • The number was flagged or delivery quality is poor. Rare, but if your SMS deliverability tanks for inexplicable reasons, a new number resets the carrier-side reputation.
If none of those apply, the answer is almost certainly “keep your number.” Even when one of them does apply, weigh the cost first.

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What breaks when the number changes

In order of impact:
  • Every place the old number is printed or saved. Business cards, website, email signatures, voicemail greeting on your old cell, EHR intake form, Google Business Profile, directory listings, your clients’ phones. None of these update automatically.
  • Call forwarding from your existing practice line. You set this up in your phone’s settings or via your carrier; both reference the Rivet number explicitly. You’ll redo that step. See Call forwarding by carrier for the relevant carrier instructions.
  • SMS conversations with existing clients. Their phones associate past texts with the old number. When you reply from the new number, it shows up as a new thread to them — not appended to the existing one. Your old conversation history stays in your Rivet inbox, but they see it as starting fresh.
What doesn’t break:
  • Your Rivet URL (slug). It’s separate from the phone number and stays the same.
  • Your account, your auto-reply config, your greeting, your data — all of it stays bound to your account, not to the phone number.
  • Voicemails and texts already in your inbox. We don’t delete history when we swap the line.

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How to request a swap

Email hello@getrivet.ca with:
  • Your current Rivet number.
  • The area code you’d prefer, or the city you want a local number in.
  • A one-sentence reason. (Helpful for sanity-checking; not gating.)
We’ll usually respond the same day with a shortlist of two or three candidate numbers in the area you asked for. Once you pick one, the swap takes 5–10 minutes on our end. The old number is released back to the pool after a short hold window.
Released numbers don’t come back. Once we release the old number, it returns to the carrier pool and could be assigned to someone else within days. There’s no recall path. Confirm you’re done with the old one before we swap.

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After the swap

A short checklist of what to update, in priority order:
1

Forward your existing practice line to the new number

The most urgent one. New clients calling your published number need to reach you. See Call forwarding by carrier.
2

Update your website, email signature, and business cards

The slow-burn places. Each one missed becomes a missed call later.
3

Send a one-line text to your active clients

From your new Rivet number — “Hi, just letting you know my office line has changed. Save this number as my new practice line.” Bonus: ask them to text you back so the thread is established from their side too.
4

Update your Google Business Profile + any directories

Psychology Today, Theravive, Inkblot, whichever directories your clients find you through.

Changing your Rivet URL

The other piece of your public identity. Different rules — three changes allowed, no support email needed.

Sending and receiving calls

What changes about call handling after a number swap.