AI receptionist for dental and medical practices. Yours is on a call.
Half past eight, everybody ringing at once and one person to answer them. Nobody on your desk is doing anything wrong: there is simply one of her. Carrie takes the others at the same time, books the routine ones, and passes the rest to your team with the detail already down.
She gives no clinical advice of any kind, and she reads nothing off anybody's record. Both of those are absolute.
How does an AI receptionist work in a practice?
An AI receptionist takes the callers your desk cannot get to in the same minute, handles the routine ones completely, and hands your team the ones that need a person. A practice is a local service rather than a trade, and this is the same receptionist we set up for both, with much tighter limits on what she may say.
The half past eight queue
The lines open and everybody rings at once. One person can hold one conversation, so the rest hear ringing or a hold tone, and some of them give up.
The routine ones never reach the desk
Moving an appointment, a check-up, a recall, opening hours, where to park, whether you are taking new patients. None of that needs your receptionist and it takes up her morning.
The rest arrive already written up
Anything clinical, anything unusual and anybody who asks for a person goes to your team, with the name, the number and what they said already down, so the call starts halfway through.
A Monday morning
Twenty past eight and the phones open at half past. By twenty to nine there have been twenty-three calls and your receptionist has taken six of them properly. The rest heard ringing. Three of those rang back later, four turned into a complaint at the desk about never getting through, and you have no way of knowing what the others wanted.
With her taking the overflow, all twenty-three are dealt with by ten to nine. Fourteen were routine and never reached the desk at all: nine appointment moves, three check-ups booked, two asking about parking and opening times.
Six went straight to your receptionist because they needed a person, each with the name and the reason already written down. Three were in pain and were given, word for word, the instruction the practice already gives, and flagged immediately.
Your receptionist had six real conversations instead of six real ones and seventeen missed.
What practices ask, and the answers are narrow on purpose
Most of these are about the boundaries rather than the features, which is the right way round for this line of work.
What does she say when somebody describes a symptom?
Exactly the words your practice already uses for that situation, and then she tells your team immediately.
Every clinical judgement stays with your clinicians, on every call, under every circumstance. That is built into her rather than set on a screen, so the answer never changes with the hour.
Can it look somebody up on our system?
It can find an appointment to move it, in the diary, the same way an online booking does.
Clinical records stay behind your own front desk, where identity gets checked properly. A name given down the phone is not proof of who somebody is, and your team is the right place for that judgement.
Somebody rings on a Sunday in pain. What happens?
They get answered, which is more than a recorded message, and they are given exactly the instruction your practice already gives for out of hours. Your own wording, not ours.
Then your team knows they rang, with the name, the number and what they said already written up.
What does it take off our receptionist?
The routine appointment moves and messages that fill her morning, so she is free for the calls that need a person.
She keeps everything that needs judgement, reassurance or a decision. There is more of that in a practice than in almost any other line of work, and it is the part patients remember.
What about recalls? That is most of our routine work.
Recalls are the part it does best, because they are dated, predictable and nobody enjoys them. It contacts the people who are due, offers real slots and books them, and it does that steadily all year rather than in a push when somebody notices the diary is thin.
Can it take new patient enquiries?
Yes, and it says truthfully whether you are open to new patients, because that is the question and a vague answer sends somebody to the practice down the road. It takes the details and hands them over rather than registering anybody, because registration is a process with checks in it.
What about data protection?
What she holds is a name, a number and an appointment, on your own systems rather than somewhere else. Records stay closed and clinical detail stays with your clinicians.
Whoever handles data protection for the practice sees exactly that, in writing, before anything is switched on.
Our patients are older. Will they cope with it?
Somebody who wants a person can say so at any point and gets one, and that is the first thing she offers where a caller sounds unsure. The alternative is not a person, it is a hold tone, and older patients are the ones who give up on a hold tone soonest.
Can it handle cancellations and fill the gap?
Yes, and in a practice that is worth real money because a lost appointment slot is a lost hour of clinical time. When somebody cancels, it offers the slot to people waiting for one.
Will it discuss prices?
She says your published fees exactly as you publish them. Anything that depends on a clinician looking goes to a clinician.
How is it set up?
More carefully than for a trade, and that is deliberate. What it may and may not say, your own out of hours wording, which appointment types it may book, who it hands to and when. Nothing goes live until somebody at the practice has heard it and agreed to it.
Do the AI answers know whether we are taking new patients?
Whether you are taking on new patients is one of the first things people ask. They now put it to an assistant rather than ringing round. One answer comes back naming practices, and Google writes the same sort of answer above the blue links.
- It is a stated fact and it changes. A page saying plainly what you are open to, and when that was last true, is the one an assistant can safely repeat.
- Getting it wrong costs the front desk a morning. A stale sentence sends you calls you cannot help, on the line the people you can help are trying to reach.
- None of it is a separate service. Google's own guide says its AI answers are built on ordinary search ranking, so it is the work you are already paying for.
Where else does she answer?
The phone is one of seven, and for a practice the website form and email carry most of the routine questions.
The AI receptionist
All seven channels, and what she covers on each one. See the AI receptionist
A website for your line of work
The site built for somebody in pain on a Sunday. See details
Website live chat
Somebody on your site deciding whether to ring at all. See details
What else is worth reading?
Every page here answers one question properly rather than skimming five. These are the others, and each one says what it is before you click it.
AI receptionist for electricians
You cannot answer with a tester in one hand and the board open. Every call answered, the fault written down, and the job on your phone.
AI receptionist for garages and MOT centres
It is the same four questions all day and you are under a car. She answers what an MOT costs and when you can take it, without you moving.
Foothold AI: websites and AI for local service businesses
A website that gets found, a back office that runs the day, and an app for your team. From £295 to set up and £99 a month. Suffolk based, UK wide.
Where we work: Suffolk and north Essex
Twenty towns across Suffolk and north Essex, from Sudbury. Most are twenty or thirty minutes away, and the person who builds your site comes out.
How long is the queue at half past eight?
Nobody on your desk is doing anything wrong. There is one of her, and a queue of them.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.