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Overview

This guide walks you through making your first API calls to Alto Health. You’ll upload a medical referral document and trigger automated pathway execution to process it.
Prerequisites:
  • Your Alto Health API credentials (organization ID, platform API key, authentication token)
  • A sample medical document (PDF or image)
  • A configured pathway in your Alto Health account
  • Basic knowledge of REST APIs

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Two Ways to Process Documents

Alto Health offers two approaches for processing documents:
What it does: Upload your document, then explicitly trigger automation via API call.Steps required:
  1. Upload document
  2. Call the automation endpoint manually
  3. Wait for results (via webhook or polling)
Best for: Workflows where you need control over when automation starts, or when you want to perform additional operations between upload and processing.
This quickstart shows the Manual approach to demonstrate all available API endpoints. For the autonomous approach, simply skip Step 2 after uploading your document.

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Complete Workflow

We’ll build a simple workflow that:
  1. Uploads a medical referral document
  2. (Optional - Manual only) Triggers automated pathway execution
  3. Receives results via webhook or polling

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Workflow Overview

Autonomous (Green path): Fastest approach - upload and Alto Health automatically handles extraction, rules, and actions.Manual (Yellow path): Upload, then explicitly trigger automation for more control.Get results via:
  • Webhook (Recommended): Alto Health automatically sends results to your endpoint when processing completes
  • Polling: Your service periodically checks the status endpoint until completion

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Step 1: Upload a Document

Upload a medical referral document to Alto Health using the Upload Document endpoint.

Upload Document

See complete endpoint documentation with code examples in Python, JavaScript, cURL, and C#
Save the record_id from the response. You’ll need it if you’re using manual automation (Step 2).
Using Autonomous mode? You’re done! Alto Health will automatically process your document. Skip to “What Happens Next?” to learn how to receive your results via webhook or polling.

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Step 2: Run Automation Manually (Optional)

Skip this step if using Autonomous mode. With autonomous automation, processing starts automatically after upload. Only complete this step if you need manual control over when automation starts.
Trigger the automated pathway to process the document using the record ID from Step 1.

Run Automation Manually

See complete endpoint documentation with code examples and pathway types
The pathway executes asynchronously. Results will be delivered via:
  • Webhook (if configured) - Alto Health POSTs results to your endpoint
  • Polling - Query the status endpoint periodically
See the Webhooks guide for setting up webhook notifications.

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What Happens Next?

After uploading your document (and optionally triggering automation manually):
  1. Automated Processing - Alto Health automatically:
    • Extracts clinical data from the document
    • Evaluates rules and conditions based on your configured pathways
    • Executes configured actions (notifications, routing, triage recommendations, etc.)
    • Updates record status
  2. Receive Results - Choose your preferred method:
    • Webhook (Recommended): Configure a webhook URL to receive automatic notifications when processing completes
    • Polling: Query your system to check pathway completion status
Fastest workflow: Use Autonomous mode with Webhooks for real-time data extraction and triage recommendations. Just upload your document and receive results instantly via webhook - no manual intervention needed!See the Webhooks guide for setup instructions.