Physica Physiotherapy: 300+ calls a day, zero voicemail backlogs, and a happier admin team

About Physica Physiotherapy

Physica Physiotherapy is a multi-location musculoskeletal physiotherapy clinic operating across four sites in Melbourne, Australia — Physica Ringwood, Physica Knoxfield, Physica Yarra Valley, and Physica Active. Each location is staffed by on-site reception teams ranging from one to four administrative staff who manage day-to-day client interactions including phone enquiries, bookings, cancellations, and rescheduling.

Darren, one of the co-owners of Physica, serves as both clinic owner and CEO of PatientNotes — an AI-powered clinical documentation platform serving allied health professionals globally. This dual role means Physica brings an unusually sophisticated lens to technology adoption: not simply seeking to cut costs, but to meaningfully improve the client experience through well-implemented, carefully trained AI systems.

How Physica Found BookedSolid

Physica first discovered BookedSolid through the Nookal integration page. As an existing Nookal PMS user across all four locations, the integration pathway offered a natural entry point — and the ability to have a single AI agent work seamlessly within their existing practice management infrastructure was a significant factor in the decision to trial the platform.

The Challenge

Despite having on-site reception staff at every location, Physica faced a persistent challenge common to high-volume allied health clinics: call overflow. With call volumes regularly exceeding the capacity of front desk staff — particularly during busy periods, between sessions, and outside business hours — clients were experiencing:

• Extended hold times
• Calls going unanswered and rolling to voicemail
• Voicemail backlogs requiring up to one hour of admin time each morning to action
• Inconsistent call handling quality across four separate locations
• An inability to self-serve on common tasks such as booking, rescheduling, or cancelling appointments

Critically, the motivation for exploring an AI reception solution was not cost reduction:

"Our goal was purely to improve client and customer satisfaction and improve their journey through our organisation. Our sites all have on-site receptionists — this was never about replacing them."

The Solution: BookedSolid AI Reception

Physica implemented BookedSolid at the end of 2025. The platform was selected for its ability to be deeply trained — not just from web resources, but through custom knowledge inputs — enabling the creation of an AI reception agent that could be onboarded consistently and refined over time.

Omnichannel Consistency

A key advantage of the BookedSolid platform is that the same AI agent powers both the phone reception experience and the website chatbot. Clients receive a consistent, high-quality experience regardless of how they contact the clinic — and Physica's team only needs to manage one agent rather than maintaining separate systems.

Out-of-Hours Coverage

The impact was most immediately felt outside business hours. Prior to implementation, after-hours calls rolled to voicemail — creating a backlog that required admin staff to spend up to one hour each morning listening to and actioning messages. With BookedSolid, clients can now book, reschedule, cancel, or enquire at any time of day or night.

"No longer do we have any actions in the morning such as listening to voicemails, which would often take our team almost an hour to action."

Three-Ring Routing

Calls are answered by staff in the first instance — but if unanswered within three rings, the call routes seamlessly to the AI agent. Clients also retain the ability to request a human at any point, ensuring no caller feels trapped in an automated system.

The Implementation Journey: Set and Cohabitate

One of the most valuable insights from Physica's experience is the distinction between out-of-box functionality and optimised performance. BookedSolid worked well from day one — but reaching peak performance required an ongoing commitment to refinement that the team now describes as "set and cohabitate" rather than "set and forget."

"To get the most out of it is not just a set and forget. It's a set and cohabitate — and train both you as a clinic owner and your current admin team to best update regularly and help the system learn from situations where an answer could have been optimised."

Phase 1 — Initial Configuration

The initial onboarding focused on getting the core scripting pathways right: new patient bookings, existing patient bookings, cancellations, and rescheduling. While the team attempted to anticipate as many edge cases as possible upfront, real-world call scenarios quickly surfaced situations requiring script refinement.

Phase 2 — Edge Case Discovery and Script Refinement

The script editor proved to be one of the most valuable features of the platform. Key refinements included:

• Practitioner-specific 12-month check: A patient returning to Physica but seeing a new practitioner needs an Initial Consultation, not a Standard Consultation. The original script did not account for this distinction.
• Podiatry routing: The original script was routing common foot and ankle pain presentations to the podiatrist. This was incorrect — these are physiotherapy presentations. The script was refined to only transfer to podiatry when the caller explicitly requests a podiatrist or names the specific podiatrist.
• Multi-location practitioner handling: Several practitioners work across multiple locations. Without an explicit location confirmation step before diary search, bookings could land at the wrong site. A guard instruction was added requiring location confirmation for these practitioners before any availability search.
• Cancellation window tiering: A two-tier cancellation policy was implemented. Inside 24 hours, the agent warns of a potential fee and offers a reschedule. Inside 4 hours, the agent does not complete the cancellation — it transfers to a human team member.
• Call lookup efficiency: The original cancellation and reschedule scripts collected multiple details upfront. The refined approach collects name and date of birth first, then uses a disambiguation process only if multiple bookings are returned — reducing unnecessary questions for most callers.

Phase 3 — Admin Team Engagement

Perhaps the most important factor in Physica's optimisation journey has been the active involvement of the admin team across all four sites. Initial reactions ranged from amazement at the quality of the AI's call handling to genuine concern about job displacement.

"Our admin team were initially blown away with the quality of call answering. And then, like many people, they became very concerned that it might have replaced them — to the fact that it was verbalised: 'Why do you need me?'"

The response from clinic leadership was clear: the goal was never to replace reception staff, but to free them from the repetitive aspects of phone handling so they could focus on what humans do best — being present with clients, managing complex situations, and delivering the kind of warm, personalised service that builds long-term patient relationships.

Phase 4 — Cross-Site Feedback Infrastructure

To capture and act on feedback systematically, Physica created a dedicated Slack channel shared across all four locations. Any time a team member identifies a positive or negative client experience related to the AI agent, it is logged in the channel. The clinic owner uses this input to make targeted script adjustments, creating a continuous improvement loop.

"As a clinic owner, without listening to the feedback that our admin team got from reception — as well as from listening to calls — my role in adjusting the scripts would not have been as good or as efficient as it is."

Expanding Capability: Outbound Activation

Having established a strong inbound foundation, Physica has recently commenced outbound activation — using BookedSolid's waitlist and follow-up functionality to proactively reach clients. Clients placed on a waitlist are now automatically contacted when a suitable slot becomes available. If a call is cut short or goes unresolved, the system automatically follows up via SMS. Email alerts notify the team when messages are left, ensuring nothing falls through the gap.

Impact on the Admin Team

The efficiency gains have translated directly into a better working environment for staff across all four sites. The average BookedSolid call duration of 1 minute 13 seconds compares favourably to the 4-5 minute exploratory calls that previously tied up front desk staff. Multiplied across 300+ calls per day, the cumulative time reclaimed is substantial — and that time is now invested in higher-value client interactions.

"What this has enabled us to do is better utilise our admin team for some of their superpowers that were previously tied up on the mundane admin of answering calls."

Advice for Other Clinic Owners

1. Define your goal clearly before you start. Cost reduction and experience improvement require different configurations. Know which you are optimising for.
2. Expect to invest in ongoing refinement. Out-of-box performance is good, but optimised performance requires active script management, real-world feedback loops, and willingness to iterate.
3. Engage your admin team from day one. Their on-ground perspective is irreplaceable. Create a structured channel for feedback and act on it consistently.
4. Use the three-ring routing model. Keeping humans as the first point of contact — with the AI as a seamless fallback — preserves the human touch while eliminating the cost of unanswered calls.
5. Build for edge cases, not just the happy path. The most important script work happens after go-live, when real calls surface scenarios you didn't anticipate. The script editor is your most valuable tool.
6. Treat the AI like a new team member. The same investment you would make in training, feedback, and development for a human receptionist applies here. The more you put in, the better it performs.

Summary

Physica Physiotherapy's BookedSolid implementation demonstrates what is possible when an AI reception platform is deployed with clear intent, active management, and genuine team engagement. Starting from a simple goal — improve the client experience without reducing headcount — Physica has built a system that handles over 300 calls per day, eliminates voicemail backlogs, provides 24/7 client self-service, and frees a dedicated admin team across four locations to do their best work.

The journey from implementation to optimisation has taken sustained effort — but the results speak to the value of that investment. BookedSolid is no longer just an overflow tool. For Physica, it has become a core part of how the clinic operates.