Case study · customer-approved summary
~38% of policy and scheduling questions deflected at 90 days
A four-location specialty clinic network — Pacific Northwest — deployed grounded voice and chat for administrative FAQs without letting AI cross into clinical advice.
The challenge
Front desk staff answered the same insurance, hours, and prep questions dozens of times daily — while patients with urgent scheduling needs waited on hold. After-hours calls hit a generic voicemail with no routing by site or urgency.
What we deployed
- Audited top 40 administrative intents from call logs and front-desk tickets.
- Grounded answers in approved policy PDFs and site-specific hours — RetrievIQ citations on every reply.
- Built escalation paths: clinical symptoms, billing disputes, and new-patient complexity route to staff with context.
- Connected scheduling API for three sites in phase one; fourth site manual handoff.
- Compliance review on retention, BAA scope, and transcript sampling before go-live.
Stack
- Athenahealth scheduling — three of four sites
- AI voice + chat — administrative intents only
- RetrievIQ — approved policy corpus with citations
- Escalation queue — structured handoff to front desk
Results at 90 days
~38%
administrative questions deflected
scheduling, hours, prep, and insurance FAQ — not clinical.
22%
shorter average hold time
peak morning window across four sites vs. prior 90 days.
12 wks
compliance sign-off to network live
phased by site; chat before voice.
- Front desk reclaimed time for in-person patients and exceptions — repeat policy questions moved to grounded self-serve.
- Compliance signed off on citation-backed answers and explicit clinical escalation — no “helpful guessing.”
- Network ops lead reviewed deflection and hold time monthly, not chat session counts.
Rollout timeline
Week 1–3
Content audit + compliance
Approved FAQ corpus per site; BAA and subprocessor review. Baseline: 62% of repeat admin calls handled by live staff.
Week 4–7
Chat + voice pilot
Chat on patient portal; overflow voice on two busiest sites. Zero clinical-advice responses — hard guardrails tested.
Week 8–12
Network rollout + tune
Expanded to four sites; 38% of qualifying admin intents resolved without staff touch.
“We needed coverage that doesn’t invent clinical answers. Staff finally trust the handoff — they see the source doc and why the patient was routed.”
Customer approved this summary for public marketing. HIPAA-aligned deployments require your BAA, approved content, and site-specific workflows. Outcomes vary by volume and escalation rules.
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