What can a voice agent handle for an orthopedic practice?
An orthopedic answering service answers your practice's calls when your front desk can't: after hours, on holidays and during daytime overflow. A traditional medical answering service takes a message and pages the on‑call surgeon. A voice AI agent, the AI version of that service, does more on the same call: it handles appointment scheduling for new‑injury, post‑op, imaging and workers' comp visits in your electronic health record (EHR) under your surgeons' rules, routes callers by body part using routing rules defined by your clinical team, takes prescription requests and referrals, and transfers post‑op concerns and red‑flag symptoms to the on‑call surgeon your rotation names.
The calls orthopedic groups take all day
Orthopedic scheduling has more rules than most specialties, and they live in your schedulers' heads. You write them into the agent once. These are the kinds of rules teams build in, and we think new-injury calls are the place to start, because they're the busiest line and the rules behind them are usually the clearest.
New injuries, routed by body part
A caller who hurt their shoulder on Sunday needs a different provider, visit type and slot than someone with a hand injury or chronic back pain. The agent asks where it hurts, when it happened and how it's affecting them, then books the subspecialty and timing your rules set. A suspected fracture, or any symptom you flag as a red flag, goes to a person on your clinical team at once.
Post-op visits at your surgeons' intervals
Each surgeon has their own follow-up cadence, and some visits belong with a physician assistant rather than the surgeon. The agent books post-op visits on the intervals and with the provider your protocol names, so a patient doesn't land in the wrong clinic two weeks after surgery.
Imaging before the visit
If your rules say a new knee patient needs recent X-rays before they see the surgeon, the agent asks whether they've had them and where. When they haven't, it books imaging where your system allows, or flags the visit so your team can order it.
Referrals from other providers
When a primary care doctor or urgent care sends a patient your way, the agent books the referred patient into the visit type and subspecialty your rules set, and captures the referring provider's details for your team.
Workers' comp and injury claims
Claims visits stall when the employer, claim number or adjuster contact is missing. The agent collects those details on the call, books with a provider who accepts the case, and passes the record to your team for review.
Prescription requests and routine messages
Refill requests and routine questions don't need to wait for a callback. The agent takes the details of a prescription request and routes it to your team, answers questions about hours, locations and visit preparation from content you've approved, and passes anything else on as a message with the caller's details attached.
After-hours, holiday and daytime overflow coverage
You choose when the agent answers: every call, only after hours and on holidays like an after-hours answering service, or only the daytime overflow when your front desk lines are busy. It books routine visits under the same rules at 2 AM as at 2 PM.
When a caller describes a post-op concern or a symptom you have flagged as urgent, the agent makes a warm transfer to the on-call surgeon or number your rotation sets for that night, passing along what it has already captured, so the caller does not repeat it. The agent does not diagnose or independently assess clinical urgency: your surgeons write the routing rules, 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.
Booked into the system you already run
PolyAI books directly inside ModMed, a specialty EHR system, so every appointment the agent makes appears on your calendar as it's booked, and it connects to Epic and athenahealth too. That EMR integration is what separates it from a message-taking service or a basic virtual receptionist. Patient data runs under HIPAA Security Rule controls, the US rules for safeguarding health information, and our SOC 2+ report examines those controls. A business associate agreement (BAA), the contract that sets how a vendor must protect your patients' information, is available for eligible healthcare deployments.
What specialty groups see
Audibel runs more than 400 hearing care clinics and takes about 2,000 calls a day. After launch, call abandonment fell from 46% to 2% and hold times dropped below two minutes, because callers reach an agent that collects their details and passes them on with context.
Where your team stays in charge
The agent does not diagnose, and it does not give medical advice. When a caller describes a red-flag symptom, asks a clinical question or needs an exception to your rules, it hands the call to the right person with what it has already learned. Wren, the agent inside Dialog Studio (formerly Agent Studio), reviews live calls and drafts fixes for any booking that went wrong, and a person approves every change.
Questions orthopedic teams ask
How is this different from a traditional orthopedic answering service?
A traditional answering service takes a message, and your team calls the patient back the next morning. The agent resolves the routine call while the patient is on the line: it books, moves or cancels the visit in your EHR where your system allows, and it routes urgent callers to your on-call surgeon by your rules.
What happens if the agent misunderstands a caller?
It asks again, the way a person at your front desk would. If it still can't tell what the caller needs, or the call touches anything on your urgent list, it hands the call to a person with what it has captured so far. Your team reviews calls in Dialog Studio, and Wren flags conversations that went wrong.
Can the agent follow different rules for each surgeon?
Yes. Rules can be set per provider, per location and per visit type, and the agent applies them on every call.
Does it work with ModMed?
Yes. PolyAI searches for the patient, checks live slots and creates appointments inside ModMed during the call, so the patient hangs up with a booked appointment. It also connects to Epic and athenahealth, so you can keep the system you already run.
How long does it take to set up and switch over?
That depends on your systems and how many rules go in on day one. Our team builds the deployment with yours, and the work is connecting your EHR and phone system, writing your scheduling and on-call rules, testing on real call scenarios and getting your sign-off. You can switch over one call type or one location at a time, while your existing answering service keeps the rest.
How much does a doctor's answering service like this cost?
Traditional answering services usually bill per call, per minute or on a monthly plan. PolyAI's pricing depends on your call volumes and setup, and our pricing page has the details.
Hear it on your own calls
Pick the call type that ties up your front desk most, and book a 30-minute demo. We'll run it through a live agent.