Clinics where the phone rings during treatment
At a chiropractic or PT clinic, most calls are not new patients. They are people rebooking, moving a visit, asking whether they need a referral or checking what to wear. Those calls arrive while the front desk is checking someone in and the clinicians are with patients. At a veterinary clinic, the mix includes worried owners, vaccine appointments and prescription refill questions.
This page is the clinic version of our AI assistant. One setup covers phone, website chat and texts, and the rules change by clinic type: human patients fall under HIPAA, pets do not.
Chiropractic and PT: rebooking and first visits
For clinics that see patients many times, the assistant’s most useful job is the repeat booking. A patient calls to move Thursday to Friday or to book the next three visits. The assistant takes the request with the visit type in general terms and the times that work, then books it in your scheduling tool or passes it to the front desk.
For a first visit, it answers from your approved list: what to bring, what to wear, how long the first visit takes, whether you need a referral and the fees you publish. It does not decide how many visits a patient needs or answer questions about pain or progress. Those go to a clinician.
Medical clinics and HIPAA
For any clinic that treats people, HIPAA applies to more than symptoms. Information that identifies a person and relates to their care counts as protected health information, so a name tied to an appointment request is covered.
- Every vendor that handles patient details needs a BAA with your clinic: the phone provider, the AI tool, the texting tool, the chat tool and the scheduling tool. We list them in the written scope.
- No clinical intake. The assistant asks for the visit type in general terms. It does not ask about symptoms, medications, injuries or history.
- Where a vendor will not sign, that channel stays general, and booking requests go to your front desk.
This is not legal advice. Ask your own counsel how HIPAA applies to your clinic.
Veterinary clinics: not HIPAA, still private
HIPAA does not cover pet health records. Owners still share names, phone numbers, addresses and payment questions, and some states have their own rules on veterinary records. The assistant collects only what a booking needs, keeps it in the tools you approved and does not repeat one owner’s details to another caller.
A vet clinic’s calls also need their own answers: vaccine schedules, boarding requirements and how refill requests work. Anything that needs a judgment about an animal’s health, such as a dog that ate something it should not have, goes to your team.
Emergencies, for people and for pets
The assistant does not triage. A caller who describes an emergency, human or animal, hears your emergency line and after-hours wording first. Your team writes that wording and decides what counts as urgent. We test each path before launch.
How we set it up for a clinic
- Review your calls. How many are rebooking, first visits, refills or questions, and when they go unanswered.
- Agree the scope in writing, including the vendor list for BAAs at human-patient clinics.
- Write the answers with your team. You approve every answer.
- Connect the phone, chat and scheduling tool. Tools we connect include Mindbody, Acuity Scheduling, Square Appointments and Calendly.
- Test with real calls, including a caller who starts describing symptoms and, at a vet clinic, a worried owner after hours.
- Launch, with 30 days of help and fixes within the agreed scope.
What it costs
Setup is from $900 and takes 2-3 weeks. Phone answering is from $299/month (about 300 minutes). Website chat and messaging is from $199/month. The first month is included in setup.
Not included in any price: domain and hosting, new photography, third-party software subscriptions (billed at cost), SMS carrier registration (A2P 10DLC) and message fees, and AI usage above the plan allowance.
Calls, recordings and texts at a clinic
- AI disclosure. The assistant says it is an AI assistant on every call.
- Call recording. Massachusetts requires all-party consent to record a call. If you record, the greeting says so.
- Texting. Texting patients or owners needs their consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). We set up opt-in and STOP handling. A business texting number needs carrier registration (A2P 10DLC), which is extra.
When your staff should answer
This fits clinics that miss rebooking and new-patient calls while staff are with patients or after hours. Your staff still handle clinical questions, billing disputes and anything the approved answers do not cover.
It is a weak fit if your front desk already answers every call live and patients expect to talk to someone they know. For how the phone answering works in general, see AI receptionist and phone answering.
Updated: