How do neurology practices route callers to the right subspecialist?

One phone number, several subspecialty clinics

When a neurology group runs several clinics behind one number, each clinic has its own providers and intake questions. You write those rules into the agent once, and it applies them on every call. These are examples of what teams build in, and we think subspecialty routing is where to begin, because a misrouted new patient loses a slot.

Subspecialty routing for new patients

A caller who says "my doctor thinks I'm having seizures and wants me to see a specialist" belongs in a different clinic from someone with migraines or trouble sleeping. The agent asks the screening questions your team wrote, matches the caller to the clinic your rules point to and books the new-patient visit with the right provider. When the answers don't fit a clinic cleanly, it passes the call to your intake team.

Infusion appointment series

Infusion patients come back on a schedule, and each visit needs chair time and a nurse. The agent books the series on the intervals your neurologists set, where your system shows chair availability, and moves a single visit without disturbing the rest. Questions about the medicine itself go to your infusion nurses.

Follow-up after a hospital stay

Patients leaving the hospital need a follow-up visit inside the window your neurologists set. Your team shares the discharge list, and the agent calls each patient, offers slots in that window and books the visit on the same call. A patient who asks about medication or recovery goes straight to your clinical team.

Urgent symptoms follow the pathway your team sets

The agent does not diagnose or independently assess clinical urgency. Your neurologists define the symptoms that count, and your team defines the escalation and handoff pathways for your deployment. If a caller describes an emergency, the agent tells them to call 911 and transfers them to a person, following your approved emergency protocol. On every other call, clinical questions go to the right person with what the agent has already learned.

Connected to the systems your group runs

PolyAI connects to Epic through SMART on FHIR and to athenahealth. What the agent does in each system, such as booking or insurance checks, depends on how yours is set up, and we confirm it before you start. If your scheduling lives somewhere else, the agent connects to it through its API. For your IT team, agents act in your systems through functions you control, built in Dialog Studio (formerly Agent Studio) or as code 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.

What a community health center sees

Howard Brown Health, a federally qualified health center serving more than 40,000 people a year in Chicago, cut average handle time on routine requests by 72% with its PolyAI agent. The same agent recognizes when a caller is in distress and at risk, and escalates that call to a person immediately. "I was really taken aback by how accurate and natural the virtual agent was," says Lauren Sullivan, its Chief Information Officer.