Where does a voice agent fit in an oncology practice?
A voice agent fits on the scheduling side of an oncology practice: booking treatment cycles and the labs before them, recalling patients for surveillance scans and taking new patient intake. A PolyAI voice agent does that work calmly and inside your EHR, and it puts calls about symptoms or side effects through to your oncology nurses at once.
The calls oncology teams take all day
Oncology patients call about appointments that run for months, and they call when they're tired, worried or unwell. You write your scheduling and escalation rules into the agent, and it applies them on every call at an unhurried pace. These are examples of what teams build in.
Treatment cycle appointments
Treatment runs in cycles, and each visit needs an infusion chair and enough nursing time. The agent books the cycle on the intervals your oncologists set, where your system shows chair availability. When a patient says "I can't make Thursday, can we push it a day?", it checks your rules before moving the visit and sends anything outside them to your scheduler.
Labs before treatment
When your protocol needs labs before a treatment day, the agent books the lab visit in the window your team sets and confirms both appointments by voice or SMS.
Surveillance imaging recalls
After treatment, patients come back for scans on the schedule your oncologists set. Your team pulls the list of patients who are due, and the agent calls or texts each one, offers open slots and books the scan on the same call.
New patient intake
A newly diagnosed patient calling for a consult needs a calm voice and a quick answer. The agent books the consult with the provider your rules match to the referral. It collects insurance and contact details and passes the record to your intake team so nobody asks twice.
Symptom and side-effect calls go to your nurses at once
Any call about a symptom or a side effect goes to your oncology nurse team straight away, and the agent does not judge which ones are serious. When a caller describes a symptom or side effect, it stops scheduling and transfers them with what they said passed along. Because we believe a patient should never have to explain a side effect twice, the handoff carries the details your nurses need.
What a patient transport company sees
SafeRide Health arranges non-emergency medical rides for Medicare and Medicaid members, getting patients to dialysis, oncology and other life-sustaining appointments in all 50 states. Together with PolyAI, SafeRide runs an agent, Steven, that handles 1M calls a month. One member called in to give the team her new phone number so she could "talk to Steven next time", a sign of how at ease members are with the agent.
Connected to your EHR
PolyAI connects to Epic and 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 oncology scheduling runs on another system, the agent can connect to it as well. A tool called Wren reviews live calls and drafts fixes for bookings that went wrong, and a person approves every change.
Questions oncology teams ask
Can the agent book a full treatment cycle on one call?
Yes, where your system shows chair availability. It books each visit at the interval your oncologists set and confirms the dates by text.
What happens when a patient mentions a side effect?
The agent transfers the call to your oncology nurse team straight away, with what the patient said. It doesn't ask clinical questions or offer reassurance about symptoms.
Can patients reach the agent after hours?
Yes. It answers at any hour and can book or move appointments. Symptom calls go to your after-hours clinical line, set up the way your team runs it.
Hear it on your own calls
Use a 30-minute demo to run a real chemotherapy rescheduling call through a live agent. We'll show you the handoff to a nurse, too.