diff --git a/prime-router/src/main/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRFunctions.kt b/prime-router/src/main/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRFunctions.kt
index 8d10d783e17..0166b734662 100644
--- a/prime-router/src/main/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRFunctions.kt
+++ b/prime-router/src/main/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRFunctions.kt
@@ -214,7 +214,8 @@ class FHIRFunctions(
                 actionLogger.errors.takeIf { it.isNotEmpty() }?.map { it.detail.message }?.toString()
             )
             submissionTableService.insertSubmission(tableEntity)
-            queueAccess.sendMessage("${messageContent.messageQueueName}-poison", message)
+            val encodedMsg = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(message.toByteArray())
+            queueAccess.sendMessage("${messageContent.messageQueueName}-poison", encodedMsg)
             return emptyList()
         } catch (ex: Exception) {
             // We're catching anything else that occurs because the most likely cause is a code or configuration error
diff --git a/prime-router/src/test/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRConverterIntegrationTests.kt b/prime-router/src/test/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRConverterIntegrationTests.kt
index a5a553442a5..e95fb3d5806 100644
--- a/prime-router/src/test/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRConverterIntegrationTests.kt
+++ b/prime-router/src/test/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRConverterIntegrationTests.kt
@@ -96,6 +96,7 @@ import tech.tablesaw.api.StringColumn
 import tech.tablesaw.api.Table
 import java.nio.charset.Charset
 import java.time.OffsetDateTime
+import java.util.Base64
 import java.util.UUID
 
 @Testcontainers
@@ -334,8 +335,7 @@ class FHIRConverterIntegrationTests {
             verify(exactly = 1) {
                 QueueAccess.sendMessage(
                     "${QueueMessage.elrSubmissionConvertQueueName}-poison",
-                    queueMessage
-
+                    Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(queueMessage.toByteArray())
                 )
             }
         }