Should a cardiology practice let AI answer patient calls?

Symptom calls come before scheduling

A cardiology line has one rule above the rest, and we believe it should be set before anything else: a caller describing a cardiac symptom reaches help at once. If a caller describes an emergency, the agent tells them to call 911 and transfers them to a person, following your approved emergency protocol. Other symptom calls follow the escalation and handoff pathways your team defines. The agent does not diagnose, give medical advice or independently assess clinical urgency. It hands the call on with what it has already learned.

The scheduling rules cardiology teams build in

Everything else on a cardiology line follows rules your schedulers know by heart. You write them into the agent in Dialog Studio (formerly Agent Studio), and it applies them on every call. These are examples.

Tests booked in the right order

A caller who says "my cardiologist wants an echo before my next appointment" needs the test booked ahead of the visit, with the prep and length your rules set. When a stress test needs an echo before it, the agent books them in that order where your system exposes test slots, or flags the request for your team.

Subspecialty clinics

A patient referred to electrophysiology, the heart failure clinic or a valve team needs a different provider and intake from a general cardiology follow-up. The agent asks who referred them and why, then books the clinic your rules match, or passes the call to your intake team when the referral needs review.

Device and anticoagulation follow-ups

Patients with a pacemaker or defibrillator and patients on blood thinners come back on schedules your clinics set. The agent books those checks inside the window your rules give and can send a reminder by voice or SMS, with rebooking on the same call. Questions about a device alert or a medication go to your clinical team.

Bookings land in your EHR during the call

For your IT team: PolyAI connects to Epic through SMART on FHIR and to athenahealth, and books inside ModMed during the call over FHIR R4. Other systems connect through their APIs, using functions you control in Dialog Studio or code written with the Agent Development Kit (ADK). Patient data runs under HIPAA Security Rule controls examined within our SOC 2+ report, and a business associate agreement (BAA) is available for eligible healthcare deployments.

Results from a million calls a month

SafeRide Health arranges non-emergency medical transport for Medicare and Medicaid members in all 50 states, including rides to dialysis and oncology appointments. SafeRide takes about a million calls a month with PolyAI on the line, and success rates across its call flows rose 15%. Ben Salter, its chief product officer and co-founder, said: "The fact that we can handle a million calls a month, reliably, with a great experience for our members is a real key differentiator for us."