AI phone receptionist for medical practices
Quick summary
- The phone is busiest when you unlock the door, and the receptionist already has a line at the desk.
- Most of the volume is appointments, repeat prescriptions and results enquiries — administration, not a clinical decision on the call.
- An assistant can take a request for any of those. It must never answer a clinical question.
- Results are never read out, including a result marked normal. Someone from the practice calls back.
- It answers every line at once, so the opening queue is not twelve people waiting on one pair of hands.
- It checks the calendar before it offers a time, confirms by SMS, and writes down what the caller said.
TL;DR
When you unlock the door, the receptionist is already taking names at the desk and you are already with a patient. The phone rings with bookings, repeat prescriptions, and people asking whether their blood tests are back. An AI receptionist answers every line at once, takes those requests, checks the calendar before it offers a time, and confirms by SMS. It never reads a result, never issues a medicine, and never answers a clinical question. It writes down what the caller said and puts the phrases you named onto a phone, not into an inbox.
Key takeaways
- Start with ordinary appointments and repeat prescriptions. They are the volume, and they need no clinical judgement on the call.
- Configure it so it cannot read a result, including one marked normal.
- Route chest pain, trouble breathing, or a baby who is not right to a named phone, immediately.
- Give it this practice's answers to the ten questions the desk hears every day — hours, referrals, certificates, new patients.
- Keep the transcript. What the caller said, in their words, is what the callback needs.
- Tell patients it is an assistant. Hiding that costs more trust than the queue ever did.
When you unlock the door, two people already have their hands full
The receptionist is at the desk with the people who walked in. Name, AMKA, which doctor, whether they brought last Thursday’s papers. You are in the consulting room with the first patient. Your hands are on the examination. The phone starts as soon as the lock turns.
Someone wants a time this week. Someone has three tablets left and needs the blood-pressure ones again. Someone had blood taken on Thursday and it is Monday. Someone needs a certificate for work. Someone wants to know how a referral for the scan works at this practice. Someone has to cancel tomorrow. A parent is calling about a child, and the name that belongs on the record is the child’s, not the parent’s.
The receptionist can speak to one of them. The others hear the ring, or hold music, or a machine. Some hang up and come to the glass. Some hang up and do not come back. A few stay on long enough to say they have pain in the chest — to a person who is already mid-sentence with a walk-in, or to nobody at all.
What the assistant does on this telephone
On this telephone the work is almost all administration.
- Answers every line at once. The receptionist is not choosing which ring to ignore.
- Books, moves and cancels against the practice calendar. It checks that the time is free before it offers it, and it sends the SMS confirmation itself.
- Takes repeat prescription requests, reads the item back as the patient named it, and puts the request in front of whoever issues the e-prescription. Issuing stays with you.
- Answers this practice’s own factual questions — hours, how to find you, what to bring, how referrals work here — from the sentences you entered.
- Writes down what the caller said, in their words, and hands that note to a person.
It does not examine anyone. It does not decide what a symptom means. It does not read a result. Those jobs stay in the consulting room.
Three jobs share one number
A private practice has three kinds of call on the same line. They arrive together when you open, and again in the evening if you see patients after work.
The first is people who want a time — a first visit, a follow-up, the blood-pressure check, the child who has had a fever since last night. The second is the repeat list: the box with three tablets left, the pharmacy that sent them back to you, the person who ran out yesterday. The third is results. The bloods were taken on Thursday. It is Monday. They want to know.
The receptionist can only do one of those conversations at a time. Some hang up and walk in, which gives the desk a second queue of people on top of the one on the phone. Some hang up and go without the tablets. A few mention chest pain to whoever finally picks up, after that person has already been talking for half an hour and is trying to finish a certificate.
The assistant answers every line at once, so the appointment is booked or the request is taken, the repeat is captured and read back, and the results enquiry is recorded, never answered, and marked for the doctor who actually has the file.
Many Greek practices run a second burst in the afternoon or evening, when people leave work. The receptionist may already have gone. You may still be with the last patient. Use the same rules for that window: a short forward while someone is at the desk, an immediate forward once the desk is empty, and the same phrases ringing the same named phone.
Results stay unread
Do not let the assistant read a result marked normal. “Normal” is your reading of a number next to this patient, not a stamp the number carries by itself. A patient who hears it from an automated voice has been given a clinical answer by something that cannot take the next question. The next question is always what the number means for the pain they still have, or for the tablet they are already taking, or for the child they brought in.
The assistant takes the name, the date of birth or the AMKA, which tests they mean, and a number to call back on. A person from the practice rings them.
If they ask “is it anything to worry about?” the assistant says it cannot tell. It does not have the results and it is not allowed to interpret them. It does not soften that into “probably fine” or “I am sure it is nothing.” Those sentences are advice.
A result that is not back yet is still a request, not a reassurance. “Not in yet” from an assistant that cannot see the file is a guess. Take the request. Let a person who can see the file call.
A repeat is a request, not a review
A repeat request is most of the volume on a settled list, and at the moment of the call it is clerical. The patient already has the item. You already decided it could be repeated. The call is: who are you, which medicine, which pharmacy if you need that, and is this still the right number.
The assistant takes the name as they say it — “the blood-pressure one”, “the little white ones”, the brand if they know it — and it repeats that back. It does not issue the e-prescription. It does not tell them the prescription is already at the pharmacy. It does not suggest another box. It does not say they are due or they are early. Those judgements stay with the practice, after a person has looked at the record.
It must not turn the repeat into a review. “How have the tablets been?” is a question you might ask in the room. If the patient says they have been dizzy since the dose changed, that sentence is written down as they said it and the request is flagged. Nobody on that call authorises anything.
A new item is not a repeat. “Can I also have something for the cough?” is a request for you. The assistant takes it as a request. It does not add it to the repeat form.
In Greece the next step is usually an e-prescription that the patient collects at a pharmacy. The assistant never says that step has happened. It says the request has been passed on. If you want a usual turnaround mentioned, that sentence has to come from you, as a practice habit, not as a promise about a particular box.
Phrases that must ring a person
You keep a short list of phrases that stop the conversation and reach a human immediately. Chest pain. Trouble breathing. A baby who is not right. Whatever else you decide for this practice.
The list has to be short, or it fires on everything and people start ignoring it. And it has to go to a phone, not to an email someone opens after the last patient.
The assistant is not an emergency service and must not sound like one. It does not tell the caller what the symptom means, or to wait, or to go anywhere. It captures what they said and it rings the number you named — you, a colleague, a nurse if you have one, or the receptionist with a standing instruction to put that call through.
Do not point those phrases at a flag on a screen. Flags are for results requests and certificates. Those words ring a person.
If the same phrase is spoken after you have locked the door, the assistant says the practice is closed and reads the emergency wording you wrote. It still rings the on-call phone you named, so you know the call happened. If nobody rings that phone, you will not know until you listen to a machine, and some of these callers do not leave a message.
Write the closed-hours wording yourself. Do not let the assistant invent advice about what the caller should do next. Your wording can name the emergency number you want named.
Certificates, referrals, and the ten answers the desk already knows
A large part of the morning is practice policy. How do I get a certificate for last week. Do you write the referral here or do I need a paper. What do I bring the first time. Are you taking people from this area. Can the doctor write a letter for the gym, the employer, the school, the embassy.
A receptionist who has been with you for years answers these without looking up. A new one answers them slowly and sometimes invents. Give the assistant your own sentences. “We write certificates only for patients we have seen, and only after a visit if the absence was not already recorded” is a practice rule. “You probably do not need a note for three days” is advice. It does not belong in the assistant’s mouth.
The assistant can say how this practice handles referrals, in the words you supplied — what to bring, whether the patient books the imaging themselves, whether you send the paper. It cannot decide that a particular person needs a scan. That request goes to you.
Some internists and paediatricians still make home visits. The assistant can take the name, the address, the reason in the caller’s words, and the callback number. It cannot decide that the patient should come in, or that you will come after lunch. A home visit is a decision for the doctor. The request is administration.
The assistant can collect the details you already ask of a new patient — name, AMKA, telephone, who sent them if anyone — and hand them over as a complete note. Whether they are actually on your list depends on your software and on the identity checks you insist on. Do not let the assistant tell a new arrival they are registered if a human still has to see a document.
Parking, the floor, the buzzer, whether you take card, whether you see people without an appointment: write those down once.
The diary is more than one list
Even with one doctor you have more than one kind of time. A first visit is longer than a follow-up. A blood-pressure check is not a full consult. If you work with a colleague, their list is not yours. If you have a nurse, their bloods and dressings are not your times.
Teach the assistant those types the way you teach a new receptionist, or it will put the caller in the first empty time it sees. Configure the types you already let the desk book without asking you. Keep the rest as callbacks. On-the-day times you are managing while you work are a scarce resource. Do not automate those until you have watched a week of the safer types.
A telephone consult is not a shorter face-to-face. If you offer both, they are different types, even when they share your name.
A covering doctor changes what can be booked. The colleague on Friday may not do joint injections, may not sign certain letters, may not see one partner’s patients by agreement. That is a booking rule. If the assistant cannot see it, Friday afternoon is spent ringing people to move them.
If the calendar cannot be reached, it takes a callback. It does not guess a Thursday.
When it does book, it confirms by SMS at the moment of booking, in the language of the call. That removes the second call that begins “did I actually get the 11:20?”
Tell them it is an assistant
Patients will ask whether they are talking to a person. The greeting can use the practice name and still say it is an assistant. The assistant will say so if asked. If you hide it, you spend the next months explaining yourself to people who feel tricked about their blood pressure, their child’s fever, or their results.
The written record
When a patient rings about a symptom, what they actually said matters. The gap between that sentence and what a busy desk wrote down between two other calls is how things get missed. A verbatim record with a time on it is what you can use at callback: the patient asked on Tuesday at 08:17, named these tests, and said they had been dizzy since Friday. That is a usable start. “Someone rang about bloods” is not.
Decide how long you keep recordings and transcripts. Write the period down. Make sure the erasure route works before a patient asks. Recordings and transcripts are processed inside the EU, encrypted, with a retention period you set.
August, languages, and the hours the desk is empty
The phone still rings if you closed for August, or you are at a conference, or the receptionist left at two and you are still with a patient. Configure the closed message in your own words. The assistant can take a request for when you reopen. The escalation phrases still ring the phone you named.
It recognises the language from the first sentence and continues in it, including if the caller switches. In a Greek practice that is often Greek, English, Albanian, Russian and German in the same week. It answers in 70+ languages. The SMS confirmation follows the language of the call.
What you set up first
Appointment types the desk already books without asking you.
Repeat-prescription capture with read-back, and a clear rule that a new item is a request for you, not a line on the same form.
The ten policy sentences, in this practice’s wording — certificates, referrals, new patients, parking, card, walk-ins.
The short escalation list, pointed at a phone that a person actually holds.
The rule that results are never read, including “normal”, including “not back yet” as a guess.
A forward after fifteen to twenty seconds while the desk is staffed, and an immediate forward when the door is locked.
Tell the doctors what the assistant will not do, in writing, before the first live morning. Agree the chest-pain and results rules before a patient hears a clinical word from a voice that cannot explain it.
Rates are published once, on the pricing section of the home page.
AI receptionist, in-house staff, or a call centre
| CITT | In-house | Call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The opening queue | Everyone answered at once | One call at a time | Depends on who is logged in |
| Repeat prescription requests | Taken, read back, passed on | Taken and passed on | Taken, often incomplete |
| Results enquiries | Request recorded, never read out | Per practice policy | Not permitted |
| Clinical questions | Never answered — handed to a person | Answered by the doctor or nurse | Not permitted |
| Record of what was said | Full transcript, every call | Whatever the desk had time to note | A short message |
| Languages | 70+ | One or two | Whatever was staffed |
| After the door is locked | Same capture, same escalation | A machine, if you left one on | At a surcharge |
What the first ninety minutes after opening cost in desk time
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- 60 calls in the first ninety minutes after you open, one person on the desk. Put your own window and your own count in.
- An average administrative call takes 2 minutes 30 seconds.
- Around 70% of those calls are appointments or repeat prescriptions. Use your own split.
- The person on the desk is paid roughly €11 an hour including employer costs. Use your own figure.
- 60 × 2.5 minutes = 150 minutes of talking, into a 90-minute window.
- The window is short by 60 minutes, which is why callers wait and some hang up.
- 70% of 150 minutes = 105 minutes a day of purely administrative call handling.
- 105 minutes × 5 days × 46 weeks ÷ 60 = about 402 hours a year.
Around 402 hours a year of desk time, roughly €4,400 at €11/hour — before counting the callers who hung up.
What it costs
CITT is pay as you go: no packages, no minimum, no contract. The current rates — the monthly fee per number and the per-minute rate — are on the pricing section of the home page, which is the only place they are published.
Frequently asked questions
Can it tell a patient their test results?
No, and you should configure it so that it cannot, including for a result marked normal. "Normal" is the doctor's reading of a number next to this patient, not a stamp the number carries by itself. A patient who hears it from an automated voice has been given a clinical answer by something that cannot take the next question. It records that they asked. Someone from the practice calls back.
What happens if someone describes symptoms?
It writes down what they said, in their words, and hands the call to a person. It does not decide what the symptom means. For a short list of phrases you specify — chest pain, trouble breathing, a very young child — it rings a named phone at once, rather than filing a note. The list is yours. Keep it short enough that it still means something when it fires.
Do patients have to be told it is not a person?
Yes, and it is in your interest. The assistant will say so if asked, and most practices say it in the greeting. If you conceal it, you spend more goodwill on the concealment than the queue was costing. A patient who knows they are not speaking to a doctor is also less likely to hear a captured request as advice.
What about repeat prescriptions?
This is the best first use after ordinary appointments: high volume, no clinical judgement at the point of the call. It takes the patient's details and the item as they named it, reads them back, and puts the request in front of whoever issues the e-prescription. The issuing stays with the practice. The assistant does not say the prescription is ready.
Is the transcript a data-protection problem?
It is a data-protection responsibility, which is not the same thing. Recordings and transcripts are processed inside the EU, encrypted, with a retention period the practice sets and an erasure route. What it should not be is a surprise. Decide the period, write it down, and test the erasure route before a patient asks.
Can it register a new patient?
It can take the details you already ask for — name, AMKA, telephone, and anything else you listed — and hand them over as a complete note. Whether that person is actually on your list depends on your software and on the identity checks you insist on. Do not let the assistant tell a new arrival they are registered if a human still has to see a document.
