AI is growing at an alarming rate, presenting opportunities for healthcare professionals and businesses to automate like never before. In this post, we take a look at AI receptionists and break down everything you should know about them before you consider whether it's right for your healthcare business.
What is an AI Receptionist?
An AI receptionist is a platform designed to automate patient communication for healthcare clinics. This means automating phone calls, messages and even emails, allowing patients to contact your clinic to manage appointments, ask questions and more.
AI receptionists are becoming widely popular due to their fast evolving nature and appealing cost efficiency when compared to traditional internal or external administrative teams.
How AI Receptionists Work in Clinics?
Connecting an AI Receptionist to Your PMS/EHR
AI receptionists work by connecting to your Practice Management System (PMS) or Electronic Health Record (EHR) via an API integration. The API allows the AI receptionist to access and alter certain information on your PMS/EHR, such as patient records and appointment times so it can perform requested tasks. Functionality can vary depending on which PMS/EHR your clinic is using, as some will allow more functions to be accessed through the API than others.
How AI Receptionists Answer Calls
Functionality can also vary from one AI receptionist to another, depending on how developed each platform is. Most platforms support call automation, which works via a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone number. Calls can then be rerouted from the existing clinic landline to the AI number in order to make the AI receptionist patient facing. This prevents patients from having to call a different number when contacting the clinic.
Other Enquiry Channels for AI Receptionists
Platforms which support other channels such as email or WhatsApp will have additional setup processes for these channels. WhatsApp integrations will require logging into your Facebook account, while email channels usually require inbox forwarding to an AI server email address.
Benefits of AI Receptionists for Clinics
Answering Every Enquiry 24/7
AI receptionists operate 24/7, and can take multiple calls at once, meaning there is never an instance where a query goes unanswered. This is crucial for clinics as patient care starts the moment they pick up the phone. This is especially helpful outside of regular clinic opening hours, when calls would have otherwise been either picked up by someone working late or gone completely unanswered - which often leads to the patient calling elsewhere, waiting for that someone who works late to pick up and schedule them in for the following morning.
AI Receptionist Features
Patients can create new records, book, cancel or reschedule appointments and even ask questions relating to your clinic and its services, for example directions or parking information. Patients can also leave messages for the clinic or a note on their appointment if they are running late.
Whilst some AI receptionists only offer call automation, the more advanced platforms on the market can automate much more, such as appointment reminders and patient follow-ups. These benefits also help increase overall efficiency in a clinic.
Cost Benefit of AI Receptionists
When you consider the spectrum of benefits that AI receptionists can provide, the price you pay for them is often very reasonable when compared to alternative options for handling patient communications.
AI Receptionist vs Alternatives
Let's take a look at some of the alternatives to an AI receptionist which have been around for a little longer, such as virtual assistants, call centres, or even internal administration teams.
AI Receptionist vs Call Centre/Virtual Assistant
Call centres are a common solution for outsourcing customer service and administration. Whilst call centres alleviate the pressure from clinics, they take a large volume of calls and as a result they often lack the personal touch. As well as this, they usually work on a usage-based fee, which mounts up over time.
Virtual assistants are often more personal which can improve the effectiveness of their customer service. Some virtual assistants use AI receptionists as well, allowing them to cover enquiries that come in after hours. This allows them to deliver a better and sometimes more cost-efficient service for clinics.
AI Receptionist vs Administration Team
Hiring an internal administration team is what many larger clinics do as this helps to deliver the best possible human service to patients who contact the clinic. However, administration teams can be very expensive and challenging to set up. On top of this, they only work during clinic opening hours, which limits the extent of customer service that can be offered.
AI Receptionist vs Going Solo
The other alternative is simply going solo and managing all your enquiries alone. This is often a good idea when starting out as it allows you to build a strong personal relationship with your first patients, which is essential for early stage growth. However, this becomes more challenging as the clinic grows, which is when an AI receptionist becomes rapidly more appealing.
AI Receptionist vs All Alternatives
Whilst these alternatives are more human intensive, they have one other thing in common - they are generally more expensive due to the fact that human intensive work can't be scaled as efficiently as technology.
It's important to consider that using technology for efficiency is great, but keeping that human touch for when it's truly needed is still essential. With an AI receptionist you have the ability to escalate a query to a human for support if needed. This can be done by either forwarding the call to a team member, or leaving a message with the team for a callback.
Patient Experience & Trust
Quality of the Tech Stack
Given the wide range of functionalities that AI receptionists offer, the patient experience can vary hugely. Many platforms on the market are built using off-the-shelf platforms which allow non-programmers to build applications through a user-friendly interface. Whilst agent built products may still function at a basic level, they are limited in scope and tech quality.
The top AI receptionists on the market are products built from the ground up with no corners cut. This allows developers to streamline the code base for better performance and increase the rate at which they can develop additional features or fix issues.
Another consideration is the quality of the AI models being used. There are a large variety of AI models involved in AI receptionists, such as the Large Language Models (LLM) or Speech-To-Text models (STT). Some of the stronger providers for AI models include:
Data Security
Security is also a big consideration when talking about the patient experience. It's important to choose an AI receptionist which takes security seriously and adheres to any required data protection laws, such as GDPR or the Australian Privacy Act.
Do Patients Prefer AI Receptionists Over Humans?
The age-old question is whether patients prefer AI receptionists over humans. AI receptionists are generally more effective at dealing with most queries, especially when those queries fall during the weekend or outside of the clinic opening hours. Patients generally appreciate being able to contact the clinic at times that are convenient for them.
Equally, there is always a time and a place for human support, as not all queries can be handled by an AI receptionist. Ensuring that human support remains easily accessible when needed, which is key to delivering the best overall service for patients.
Implementing an AI Receptionist in a Clinic
Connecting to Your PMS/EHR
When it comes to implementing an AI receptionist in your clinic, you'll have to first check that they support the PMS/EHR which you are using to store patient data and manage appointments. Some of the more popular systems on the market include:
If your system is supported, you can generate an API key, which is then entered when creating an account for your chosen AI receptionist. From here, you will be able to generate access to your AI number and make it patient facing by setting up call forwarding from your existing clinic landline to this new number. This is the same process involved when rerouting calls to a virtual assistant or call centre.
Customisation
With every clinic being different, it's important to consider the level of customisation you can implement when selecting an AI receptionist. Customisation can include general settings and features, but also the ability to edit call scripts or request certain additions to your account on the backend.
Challenges & Limitations
Whilst AI receptionists are developing very quickly, their growth is partially dependent on the growth of the AI models used. This can sometimes limit AI receptionist platforms when it comes to hallucinations. However, as AI models improve, hallucinations are likely to reduce drastically until they become a thing of the past.
Future Outlook for AI Receptionists
Will AI Receptionists Completely Replace Humans?
The short answer is no. Whilst AI receptionists aim to automate a huge amount of patient communication admin for healthcare clinics, the best ones recognise that human interaction is still important and necessary under certain circumstances.
As AI receptionists develop, they will be able to automate more and more, but the necessity of that human touch will never truly disappear, it will simply reduce over time.
Conclusion
Is an AI Receptionist Right for Your Clinic?
With all that said, understanding whether an AI receptionist is right for your clinic depends on the nature of your clinic. If you've just started out growing your clinic and you've got a manageable number of patients, then it might be worth focusing on developing a strong relationship with those patients by keeping the personal touch.
If however you have a growing clinic with more patients and feel as though you're overpaying for a human solution, but you'd still like to streamline your patient communications, then we'd highly recommend checking out an AI receptionist to reach that next level of cost and operational efficiency in your clinic.
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