Best medical answering service & practice marketingSkip the phone tree. Let patients say what they need.
The best medical answering service answers like a front desk, not a phone tree: it picks up every patient call, writes down what they need, books the visit and sends the right note to the right person, while our team builds the website, local SEO and online booking that bring new patients in.
Full practice system from $1,995/monthAI voice agent plan from $449/month, free setup, no contract
Every patient call answered, written down and routed.
“Thanks for calling. How can I help?”
One line. The caller says what they need. Nothing to press.
- 8:05 AM“Can she be seen today? Her ear is killing her.”Same-day sick visit booked for 10:40
- 9:15 AM“I need a refill on my blood pressure pill.”Refill note: drug, pharmacy, callback · to the nurse
- 10:30 AM“Did my blood test come back yet?”Callback task for the nurse. Nothing read out.
- 12:10 PM“I’m new in town. Do you take my insurance?”Your plan list read back · new-patient visit booked
- 2:20 PM“My cardiologist is sending a referral. Where does it go?”Where to send it explained · task for referrals
- 5:42 PM“I have chest pain and my arm feels strange.”Reads your 911 line. Booking stops. On-call alerted.
- 7:30 PM“I have to move my Thursday appointment.”Moved to Friday 9:20 · reminder updated
Answered by speech-to-speech voice AI fromGPT Realtimeby OpenAIGeminiby Google
GPT RealtimeEvery medical office phone has the same menu. Every patient hates it.
“Press 1 for appointments. Press 2 for refills. Press 3 for test results.” Someone had to build it because the desk could not answer every call, and most practices have kept it for years. It sorts calls for you. It also sorts out the patients who do not want to listen to six choices when they are worried about their child.
A caller who hangs up at the menu leaves no trace. You never see the sick child's mother who tried the next practice, the new patient who was never booked, or the referral that went to the wrong box. The visits that disappear this way are the ones you pay to attract.
This page walks the menu one press at a time. For each branch it shows what the caller wanted, what an AI receptionist does with it and what stays with your people. It never diagnoses, never reads a result and never decides whether something is serious.
Medical practice marketing, end to end
From “doctor near me”
to the next booked patient.
Six parts, one monthly price, run by our team. A new patient finds you, lands on a page that books the right visit and hears back at once. The phone covers the hours your desk is on another line.
- A website built to bookYour doctors, the visits you offer and the plans you take, with the booking calendar on every page.
- Local SEOMap and local search for doctor, urgent care and specialist searches near each of your locations.
- Online bookingNew patient, sick, follow-up and physical visits in their own lanes, with the confirmation texted.
- Lead captureEvery form, text, click-to-call and call lands in one inbox with its source.
- Lead responseEach inquiry gets a reply right away with a link to book the right visit.
- Call answeringAppointment, refill, result and referral calls picked up while the desk is busy or closed.
Full practice system
The full practice system for medical practices
Visits booked into the lanes you set, new patients answered at once, your phone covered through lunch and after close, and the HIPAA setup written down before launch. Fully managed by our team, AI included. From $1,995/month.
Or start with one piece
- AI voice agent planFrom $449/month, free setup, no contractStart here if appointment, refill and result calls reach your voicemail or a menu patients abandon. Connections to your practice software, a second location and HIPAA setup are scoped in writing.See the AI voice agents
- Get Found local SEO$99/month, or $82.50/month billed yearlyFor practices that do not appear when someone near you searches for a doctor or urgent care.See Get Found
- Review growthFrom $995 setup + $297/monthFor practices whose patients are happy but rarely say so where a stranger can see it.See review growth
- Smart WebsiteFrom $2,395 setup + $197/monthFor a practice that wants a site built around its visit types, wired to its calendar and inbox.See Smart Websites
- Essential Website$99/month for hosting and care, free design and buildFor a new or small practice that needs a clean, credible site and nothing more.See the Essential Website
Prices in USD. Essential Website includes free design and build; its monthly fee covers hosting and care. Paid website projects add deeper sales content and connected booking or enquiries. AI voice agent plans include their listed minutes. We confirm any additional software, connections and usage charges before you commit.
Press 1 for appointments. Your day sheet decides who gets booked.
Most calls to a medical office are a person trying to get on the schedule. Booking them is not a language task. It is a set of rules: who sees which kind of patient, how long each visit takes, how many slots stay free for a sick child. Those rules already exist, usually in the head of whoever runs the desk. Write them down once and the receptionist books by them on every call.
| Visit type | Length | The rule you write once | Who handles it |
|---|---|---|---|
| New patient, adult | 40 min | Dr. Patel or Dr. Ruiz only. Insurance plan and card collected before the visit. | Phone books it |
| Sick visit, same day | 20 min | Three held slots each morning. When they are gone, the next day. | Phone books it |
| Follow-up | 20 min | With the doctor who saw the patient last. | Phone books it |
| Annual physical | 40 min | Booked three weeks out unless a patient asks for the first opening. | Phone books it |
| Procedure or injection | Varies | A nurse confirms the date and any preparation. | Staff confirms |
| Anything a doctor must decide | n/a | A callback is created. Nothing is promised. | Staff decides |
Six things to decide once
- Which visit types the phone may book, and with whom
- Which slots stay held for same-day sick visits
- Insurance plans you accept, in your own words
- How far out each visit type may be booked
- What a patient is told when a day is full
- Who confirms procedures
The AI receptionist books these visit types into your calendar, with the plan written down and the confirmation texted to patients who agreed to texts. From $449/month, free setup, no contract.
Refills and results. The calls that must reach your nurse, not a robot's judgment.
Two kinds of call fill a nurse line: “I need a refill” and “did my results come back?” Both are about a decision only your team can make. So the receptionist makes no decision. It writes the call down in a form your nurse can act on in seconds, tells the patient what will happen and sets the task. It asks only what the desk needs, in the spirit of HIPAA's minimum necessary standard.
Refill requestTaken by phone, 9:15 AM
- Request
- Refill, blood pressure medication
- Patient
- R. Delgado, (555) 014-2290
- Medication
- As said by the caller: “the small white pill, 10 mg”
- Pharmacy
- Maple Street Pharmacy
- Said
- Down to a few days left
- Told
- The nurse will review this and call back by end of day
- Not done
- No approval, no change, no advice given
Results questionTaken by phone, 10:30 AM
- Request
- Asking whether blood test results are in
- Patient
- M. Okafor, (555) 013-7742, best after 4 PM
- Said
- Test was two days ago. Worried, wants to know.
- Told
- Results are shared by your office. A nurse will call. Nothing was read out.
- Not done
- No result confirmed, no interpretation given
- Also
- Patient portal mentioned if your practice uses one
Refill and results routing is part of the one call job on the AI receptionist, and part of the full practice system when your nurse queue needs reminders and follow-up around it.
Referrals, forms, new patients and billing: the calls that grow the practice.
New patients rarely arrive by phone first. They search, compare two or three practices and then call, fill in a form or tap “book.” Medical practice marketing is the work of being one of the names they see and making the next step easy. Medical SEO is the part of it that puts you there: an accurate profile, a page for each type of care and reviews you reply to carefully.
Referral calls and billing questions are the other end of the phone. A referral needs the right fax or secure upload and a coordinator who knows it is coming. A billing question needs a person who can see the account. The receptionist takes the caller's details and the question, tells them what happens next and creates the task. It never quotes a balance.
Check these five things on your Google profile this week.
Get Found keeps your profile and listings right every month, $99 a month, or $82.50 a month billed yearly. Run the free Google check to see where you stand.
Reply to reviews without naming the patient.
A thank-you is fine. Confirming that someone was your patient, or answering a complaint with details of their visit, is not. The HHS Office for Civil Rights settled with a dental practice over exactly this in 2022, after the owner answered online reviews with patient names and visit details (HHS Office for Civil Rights). Keep replies to an invitation to call your office.
And the website?
It has to look like a real practice and book. Give each type of care its own page with the doctors, the plans and the booking link on it. The Essential Website includes free agency design and build; $99 a month covers hosting, SSL and care. A Smart Website wired to booking is from $2,395 setup + $197/month.
- 1CategorySet the category that names what you really are, such as Family practice physician, and add others only for care you provide.
- 2HoursShow real hours and say plainly how after-hours calls are handled. A closed sign that still lets a patient book is useful.
- 3New patientsSay whether you are accepting new patients. It is the first thing a person new to town looks for.
- 4PlansList the insurance you accept in plain words, and update it when a contract changes.
- 5Booking linkA link to a page that books the right visit, not to a homepage.
The call that is not a booking. The line your clinicians write once.
Sooner or later someone calls and describes something frightening. A receptionist, human or AI, is not the one to judge it. So the rule is simple and written by your clinicians: say the emergency line, stop booking, alert the on-call provider and say nothing else about the symptoms. Sort every other call by the piles below. You decide each line.
Opening line
“If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911 now.”
Read before anything else on any call where the caller sounds unwell.
Stroke signs
Your clinicians’ wording for face drooping, arm weakness and speech trouble.
Source: CDC signs of stroke. Call 911, do not drive.
Everything else clinical
“I can’t tell you what is wrong. Your nurse will call you back.”
The phone never judges how serious something is.
The alert
The on-call provider is texted with the caller, the words used and what was said back.
A second alert if it is unread.
The record
The call is saved with its note, so the next shift sees the same story.
Stored where your agreements say.
| The call | Where it goes | Who hears about it |
|---|---|---|
| A caller describes chest pain, trouble breathing, stroke signs, heavy bleeding or a fall | 911 line, then on-call | On-call provider, alerted |
| Someone says they feel very unwell right now | 911 line, then on-call | On-call provider, alerted |
| Sick child, ear pain, fever, a rash, no sign of an emergency | Same-day sick slot | The schedule you set |
| A refill with a few days left | Nurse queue, today | Nurse |
| Asking about test results | Nurse queue | Nurse |
| Follow-up or annual physical | Booked | The schedule you set |
| New patient or insurance question | Booked, plan list read | The schedule you set |
| Referral paperwork, forms or records | Referrals task | Referrals coordinator |
| Billing or a balance | Billing task | Billing, next morning |
We load these rules into the receptionist, so a sick child gets a same-day slot and an emergency hears your 911 line.
A medical answering service hands you a message slip. Yours hands you the visit.
For years the fix for a practice phone has been an answering service: a call center picks up, types a name, a number and a line about the problem, and pages whoever is on call. It beats voicemail. But the operator answers for many practices, and what reaches you is a message and another callback to make. That is why owners search for a healthcare call center alternative.
Our AI receptionist answers for your practice alone, on every call. It runs on native speech-to-speech voice models, GPT Realtime from OpenAI and Gemini from Google, and asks what your staff need before anything is scheduled or passed on. You get the call with its context, and a visit when your rules allow one.
While you were out
- To
- On-call
- From
- Mrs. Lindqvist
- Phone
- (555) 012-6618
- Time
- 9:48 PM
UrgentPlease call
Her husband is dizzy and weak. Please call back.
- Call
- Dizzy and weak. Read the 911 line. Sent to on-call.
- Caller
- Ingrid Lindqvist for her husband, (555) 012-6618
- Said
- Started about twenty minutes ago. He is sitting down.
- Told
- “If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911 now.” Said twice.
- Not done
- No advice about what is wrong. Booking stopped.
- Also
- On-call text sent at 9:49 PM. Second alert at 9:54 PM if unread.
Same caller, same night. The questions are yours, set per call type.
Six questions to ask any medical answering service
Whoever you choose, ask these before you sign. The answers tell you what your evenings will look like.
Do your operators answer for other practices at the same time?
Listen forA shared pool means your protocol is one of dozens on the operator’s screen.
With our receptionistIt answers for your practice only, on every call.
Will you sign a business associate agreement before you hear a patient call?
Listen forHesitation, or “it is in our terms.” A practice needs the agreement in writing before launch.
With our receptionistAgreements and settings are settled in writing before launch. Your practice stays responsible for its own compliance.
What exactly happens when a caller describes an emergency?
Listen forA named protocol, who approved it and who is alerted.
With our receptionistIt reads the emergency line your clinicians wrote, stops booking and alerts your on-call. It never decides what is serious.
Can you book into my actual schedule, or only take a message?
Listen forWhether a message still means a callback from your desk.
With our receptionistIt books the visit types you set, into your calendar. A direct link to your practice software is checked, never promised blind.
What does a heavy month cost me?
Listen forA per-minute rate, a minimum and the overage that arrives after flu season.
With our receptionistFrom $449/month, free setup, no contract. Your plan includes the voice minutes listed and normal texting and email for your business. Third-party carrier and registration fees are billed separately at cost. Need more minutes? Add a prepaid top-up pack or move up a plan.
What does my on-call doctor or nurse receive at 10 p.m.?
Listen forA name, a number and one line.
With our receptionistA note with who, why they called, how to reach them and exactly what the caller was told.
Want a person on every call? A good live service is a fair choice, and some practices keep one for the calls they want a human to take. We can set the AI up for lunch, evenings and overflow only. Read the full comparison.
Your type of practice, in one table.
The menu looks the same everywhere. What the phone should book first, and what must stay with your people, depends on the kind of practice you run. Start from these rows and change any of them.
| Your practice | The phone books first | Stays with your team |
|---|---|---|
| Primary care and family medicine | Same-day sick visits, annual physicals, new-patient visits and follow-ups. | Whether a symptom is serious, refill decisions and test results. |
| Pediatrics | Well-child visits, sick visits and new-family intake, with a parent’s number for the callback. | Fever, dosing and “should I bring her in” questions. Those go to a nurse. |
| Urgent care | Wait-time questions, hours, insurance questions and a held walk-in or booked time where you run them. | Triage. The phone reads your emergency line and never sorts by severity. |
| Orthopedic and sports medicine | New injury visits, referral calls and post-op follow-up lanes you set. | Surgical scheduling, imaging orders and anything about recovery. |
| Fertility and women’s health | Consultation requests, new-patient intake and cycle-timed visit slots you define. | Timing advice and every clinical answer. The phone takes the question and the number. |
| Specialists (cardiology, dermatology, GI, ENT and others) | Referral-based new-patient visits, with the referring office and the paperwork it must send. | Whether to accept a referral and when the patient is seen. |
How we set it up.
A call about your phones
Half an hour on how your desk works today: who answers, when the lines ring out, what comes in after hours and which calls the nurse takes.
Your practice card
Greeting, hours, plans, visit types and who hears about what. Your clinicians write the emergency line. We draft the rest and you approve every line.
Agreements and settings
Before launch we write down where recordings, messages and forms are stored, who may open them and which agreements your practice needs, including a business associate agreement.
Test calls before any patient
We make the calls on the test sheet ourselves. Then you call it, and read exactly what your nurse and your on-call receive.
Live where it helps most
Most practices start with lunch, evenings and weekends, or overflow when the desk is on another line. You can widen it later, and we look after it every month.
About HIPAA
What a patient says on the phone about their health is health information. Our platform can be set up to support HIPAA. Before launch we settle in writing where recordings, messages and forms are stored, who may open them and which agreements your practice needs, including a business associate agreement. That setup is a large part of why a practice system costs more than a general one. In Canada the same settlement covers federal and provincial privacy law. Your practice stays responsible for its own compliance program.
The test sheet
Every call on this list is made before a patient ever reaches your receptionist.
- A parent calling about a sick child on a Monday morning
- A caller who describes chest pain after 5 PM
- Someone asking for a refill with a few days left
- A patient asking for test results
- A new patient with an insurance plan you do not accept
- A referral coming from another office
- A caller asking what is wrong with them
- A patient moving a visit they booked last week
After launch we compare your call log with the weeks before, so the change shows up in your own records. Prefer a calculator first? The free Revenue Leak Diagnostic counts the first visit only.
What stays with your team
- Every clinical judgment, including whether anything is serious
- Test results, diagnoses and prescriptions
- Refill approvals and any change to a medication
- What a plan covers and what a patient owes
- Which referrals you accept, and when patients are seen
- Your own HIPAA compliance program
The receptionist answers, writes down and books. Your clinicians still practice medicine.
Questions practice owners ask us.
Straight answers. If yours is not here, ask us on a call.
How much does medical practice marketing cost with you?
It depends on where you start. The Full practice system, where our team runs your website, local SEO, online booking, lead capture, lead response and call answering as one system, starts at $1,995 a month with setup from $5,000. Many practices start smaller with the AI voice agent plan, from $449/month, free setup, no contract. If the website is your first priority, Essential includes free agency design, copy and build; $99 a month covers hosting, SSL and care. Prices are in US dollars.
What does the starting price for the AI receptionist cover?
One main call job with one booking path, for example lunch, evenings and weekends booked into your schedule. We map it, set it up, test it and keep it running. A medical build with HIPAA setup, a connection to your practice software, a second location or more than one call job is scoped in writing first and can cost more. Your plan includes the voice minutes listed and normal texting and email for your business. Third-party carrier and registration fees are billed separately at cost. Need more minutes? Add a prepaid top-up pack or move up a plan.
Is this a medical answering service?
It covers what a medical answering service covers: your phones answered day and night, and urgent calls passed to your on-call provider. Then it goes further. It works only for your practice, asks the questions your staff need, books the visit types you set and writes the call down in a form your nurse can act on. A traditional service hands you a message. This hands you the visit or the task.
Is it HIPAA compliant?
Our platform can be set up to support HIPAA, and we do not promise “HIPAA compliant” for any customer. Before launch we write down where recordings, messages and forms are stored, who may open them and which agreements your practice needs, including a business associate agreement. That setup is a large part of why a practice system costs more than a general one. Your practice stays responsible for its own compliance program, and the line asks only what your desk needs.
What does it say when a patient describes an emergency?
Exactly what your clinicians write: it tells the caller to hang up and dial 911, stops booking and alerts your on-call provider with the words the caller used. It never judges how serious something is, and it never gives medical advice.
Can it give test results or approve a refill?
No. It writes down who called, what they asked, the pharmacy and the number, and creates a task for your nurse. It tells the caller what happens next in your words. Results, refills and anything clinical stay with your team.
Can it book into our practice software?
Sometimes. We look at your actual scheduling system and access before promising a direct connection. Where there isn’t one, it books into a calendar your desk uses, and notes and tasks reach your team the way we agree during setup.
Can it answer only after hours, or only when the desk is busy?
Yes. You choose lunch and evenings, overflow when every line is busy, or every call. We check your phone provider and forwarding during setup and test busy, unanswered and after-hours calls before launch.
Will patients know they are talking to AI?
The greeting makes it clear in the words you approve. It speaks naturally, and a caller can ask for a person at any time. You decide who that reaches and what happens if nobody can pick up. Call our live AI line and judge the voice yourself.
What AI is behind it, and can it speak Spanish or French?
It runs on native speech-to-speech voice models: GPT Realtime from OpenAI and Gemini from Google. The model hears the caller and answers in its own voice in real time, rather than turning speech into text and reading a reply back. It can be set up for more than one language, and we test real calls in each language you need before launch.
Can it text our patients?
Yes, patients who agreed to texts. It can confirm a visit, send the reminder you wrote and help move an appointment. Each text carries a way to stop, and you write every message. The rules are the FCC’s in the United States and CASL, through the CRTC, in Canada.
Do we need a new website first, and is there a contract?
No new website first. The phone works with the site you have, and if it is out of date Essential includes free agency design and build, with $99 a month for hosting and care. A custom Smart Website is from $2,395 setup + $197/month, with deeper sales content and connected enquiries. The AI voice agents have no contract, so you can cancel anytime. The Full practice system starts with 6 months, agreed in writing before any work starts. We are based in Toronto and work with medical practices across the United States and Canada.
Let's answer the next patient call.
Book a call and tell us how your phones run today. We will show you where calls are slipping, what we would switch on first, and exactly what it costs. You will talk to the people who build it, led by our founder, Vikram Roy.