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AI Frontdesk

The AI receptionist: your number, hours, routing, booking, intake and reports.
By Swades Admin
• 11 articles

What the AI receptionist does

Patients call your number. HealOS answers in a natural voice, 24 hours a day, and handles the call the way you configure it. - Books appointments from real open slots in your EHR or Google Calendar. - Recognises patients — looks up returning ones by name and date of birth, and registers new ones in your EHR if you allow it. - Transfers to staff with a spoken hand-off, or takes a message and files a task for a callback. - Answers questions about hours, insurance accepted, services, parking — from the knowledge base you fill in. - Texts patients intake-form links and appointment confirmations. - Escalates emergencies to the number you set, with 911 and 988 guidance. Everything it did on a call is visible afterwards: the transcript, the summary, the recording, and an Events list of every lookup, booking, transfer and text with its result. Messages and callbacks land in Inbox Tasks. What it does not do There is no key-press menu — it understands "I want to speak to someone" instead. It does not read your office number back as the caller's number. It does not send appointment reminder sequences yet; confirmations after booking, yes. If your call handling is more specific than the settings Practices with fixed booking slots, insurance verified before the calendar is mentioned, or a scripted greeting read word for word do not have to force it through free-text fields. Send us your call script and we build it — see Custom workflows. Start here: AI Frontdesk setup checklist.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026

AI Frontdesk setup checklist

AI Frontdesk → Start Setup. 1. Let the AI draft your setup. Enter the practice name, specialty, main phone number and your website. HealOS drafts the greeting, hours, call types and FAQs from it. Or choose Skip and fill in manually. 2. Review the three chapters — Identity (who the AI is), Operations (what it does), Growth (optional). Click any line to change it, or use Advanced edit for the full form. 3. Fill the required fields. Only three things block go-live: practice name, main phone, and BAA signed? Everything else has a sensible default. 4. Set office hours and after-hours behaviour. The default is Mon–Fri 9:00–17:00, closed at weekends, and after hours it takes a message and creates a staff task. 5. Set call routing. For each call type choose Auto-book in EHR, Warm transfer, Take message / task or AI answers. Every warm-transfer row needs a full number with country code, for example +12125550142. 6. Add the escalation number — the emergency transfer number, and an after-hours one if it differs. 7. Fill the knowledge base — services, insurance accepted and not accepted, FAQs, and what the AI must never say. 8. Create the agent. On "Review & create agent", click Create agent. It takes about a minute. 9. Get your AI phone number. Search by area code, pick a number, Activate & assign number. 10. Test with a web call. Note that live transfers and SMS do not work on a web test call — test those from a real phone. 11. Connect your EHR or Google Calendar. Until you do, the AI takes messages instead of booking. See Booking with your EHR. 12. Forward your line using the carrier steps on screen. See Your number and forwarding. 13. Call the number from a cell phone. Book a test appointment, ask for a transfer, hang up mid-call — then look at Inbound Calls and Inbox Tasks to see exactly what was captured. Check the Timezone in the practice profile before you test. It defaults to America/New_York, and a wrong timezone puts every booking hours out.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026

Your number and forwarding

Two ways to go live Keep your number and forward it (recommended): patients keep calling the number they know, and your carrier forwards to the HealOS number. Or use the HealOS number directly: put it on your website and Google Business Profile, no forwarding involved. Get the number On "Your AI Frontdesk is ready", or Settings → AI Phone Number → Change: search by area code, pick a number, Activate & assign number. It works as soon as it is assigned — call it from a cell phone and test before you touch any forwarding. Forward your existing line Under Connect to your existing line, choose your phone system type (cell, VoIP, landline) and provider. HealOS shows the exact steps or dial codes for that carrier, each with a copy button. - Cell carriers: AT&T and T-Mobile use **21*<number># to enable and ##21# to disable; Verizon uses *72<number> and *73. - VoIP (RingCentral, Google Voice, Vonage, Dialpad, 8x8, Zoom Phone): a "forward all calls" setting in the admin console. - Landlines: usually *72 and *73. Some providers charge a monthly forwarding fee. Two settings that silently drop calls Turn off "confirm connection", "press 1 to accept" and call screening on the forwarding rule. The AI cannot press a key, so with any of these on a large share of calls end before it ever speaks. Also turn off voicemail on the forwarded line so it does not race the AI, and save the HealOS outbound number in staff phones — on iPhones an unsaved number can be caught by Call Screening, which makes warm transfers fail. Turning it off again Remove the forwarding rule with the disable code shown on screen. Calls ring your front desk again immediately, with no waiting period.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026

Hours, routing, transfers and messages

Office hours A weekly schedule plus exceptions for lunch and holidays, under Settings → Office hours. After-hours handling is one of three choices: | Option | What happens | |---|---| | Take a message + create staff task (default) | After-hours greeting, then a message and a task. | | AI answers 24/7 | Everything business hours can do, including booking. | | Urgent calls transfer only | Everything else goes to voicemail. | Call routing One row per call type, each set to Auto-book in EHR, Warm transfer, Take message / task or AI answers. Out of the box, new and existing patient bookings auto-book; cancellations, reschedules, refills, lab results, insurers and referrals take a message; billing questions, "I want a person" and pharmacies warm-transfer; general questions the AI answers. Two rules save most of the trouble here: - Every warm-transfer number must be in full international format — +1 then ten digits — with an extension if needed. A row without a valid number cannot transfer. - Give "Caller insists on a live person" its own destination. If billing is the only number you entered, everyone who asks for a human is sent to billing. Transfer to a direct line or extension rather than your own auto-attendant. If an IVR answers the transfer, the AI ends up repeating "would you like to connect?". What a warm transfer sounds like The AI tells the caller it is connecting them, and they hear ringing. When your staff answer, the AI says who is calling and why, then connects them. Nothing is recorded after that point. If the line is busy, unanswered after about thirty seconds, or goes to voicemail, the AI comes back to the caller and takes a message instead. The real outcome — connected, no answer, line busy, voicemail — is on the call's Events tab. Taking a message The AI collects name, date of birth, callback number and reason, files a task under Inbox Tasks, and tells the caller someone will call back. This is what happens whenever booking is off, no EHR is connected, or routing says Take message / task. Emergencies Your Emergency keywords (chest pain, shortness of breath, bleeding, unconscious, stroke, severe pain, allergic reaction by default) send the call to the Emergency transfer number, with separate after-hours routing if you set one. Self-harm routes to 988 by default, and you can add keywords that go straight to 911 guidance.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026

Booking with your EHR

AI Frontdesk → Integrations → Connect an EHR. Until an EHR or a calendar is connected, the AI takes messages instead of booking. 1. Pick your system. The list shows every system the AI can use on a live call. Choose HealOS Scheduling if you have no EHR and want HealOS to be the calendar. If yours is not listed, ask support whether it can be added. 2. Connect. Each system has its own short flow and the dialog walks you through it. Use a dedicated HealOS user in your EHR — then the connection survives a staff member changing their own password. 3. Choose what the AI may do. Under AI Actions in the EHR, tick the allowed actions. Reading patient details and checking available slots are always on. Creating patients, booking, rescheduling, cancelling and adding call notes are on where your EHR supports them. Benefit Verification is off by default. 4. Set booking defaults — default provider, appointment type and duration used when the caller does not specify. 5. Set provider routing. One row per category: the provider, the appointment type, and the phrases callers actually use ("new patient", "physical therapy", "Dr. Chen"). New-patient and follow-up visits usually need separate rows. 6. Set provider office hours. These must match the EHR. If HealOS says Wednesday 2–5 and the EHR says 1–5, patients are told "not available" for real openings — or a booking lands where the provider is not working. How the AI identifies a patient It confirms name and date of birth, then looks the patient up. Returning patients are matched to their chart; new callers are registered if Create Patient Record is on. Failed lookups are nearly always a spelling or date-of-birth mismatch, or a nickname on the chart — "Bill" on file, "William" on the phone. Benefit verification before booking Turned on, the AI checks eligibility before it books. Turn on Offer self-pay when coverage can't be verified so a failed check does not end the call without an appointment. Disconnecting Disconnect stops every EHR action immediately. Your booking defaults are kept for when you reconnect.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026

Calls, tasks and reports

Dashboard Calls handled, average duration, appointments booked, calls the AI resolved on its own, missed calls and voicemails, after-hours volume, plus charts by call type and hour and a list of top callers. Download PDF, and a weekly report arrives by email. Inbound Calls Every call, filterable by status (Completed, Missed, Voicemail, Failed), source, language and date, searchable by name or phone, exportable as CSV. Open a call and you get four tabs: - Transcript — the whole conversation with timestamps; copy or download it. - Summary — the outcome and what the AI captured. - Recording — audio player and download. - Events — every lookup, booking, transfer and text with its result. Events is the first place to look when a booking or a transfer did not go as expected. "No answer" means your line rang and nobody picked up, so the AI took a message. A booking error shows there too, and that is what support needs from you. Inbox Tasks Messages, refill requests, callbacks and follow-ups. Filter by type, status, category and date; assign a Provider, link a Patient, add notes, Mark done. Completed items archive after 30 days. You can also create a task from a call in the row menu. A task only appears when the AI captured an actual request. If a caller hung up halfway through and nothing was filed, the transcript is still under Inbound Calls — and we can turn on follow-up tasks for incomplete calls if you want them. Providers Add your providers here so tasks auto-assign and so a refill or urgent request can text or email them. They do not need a HealOS login for that. The name must match the spelling in your EHR and the way callers say it, or assignment silently misses.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026

Voice, languages and pronunciation

Under Settings → Voice & identity: - AI receptionist name, for example "Ava". Leave it blank and it refers to itself as the AI assistant. - Business-hours greeting and After-hours greeting, read exactly as you write them. - Include emergency safety line — on by default, prepending "If this is a medical emergency, hang up and dial 911." - Pronunciation overrides — spell tricky names phonetically (Dr. Nguyen → "Win"). Useful for your web address too. - Voice — in the Voice card further down the page. Preview, pick, Apply. - Speak in — a single language, or Multilingual (auto-detect) so the AI follows the caller. - Languages the receptionist speaks — tick every language your patients use. Greyed-out ones are not supported by the voice you chose. The AI answered in the wrong language Either Speak in is pinned to one language, or the chosen voice does not support the caller's language. Set Speak in to Multilingual (auto-detect), tick the languages, and pick a voice that covers them. The greeting starts in English and then follows the caller. It keeps mishearing names or medications Unusual surnames and drug names are the common ones. Add pronunciation overrides, and ask us to add a spell-back rule and a medication list for your specialty — both are things we set up on the call script rather than settings you toggle. Special workflows Short free-text rules the AI follows on every call live under Special workflows: "Always confirm the caller is an established patient before continuing", "Remind patients to arrive 15 minutes early". If what you need is bigger than a sentence, do not force it here — see Custom workflows.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026

Custom workflows

The settings fit most practices. Some call handling is more specific than any setting can express: - Fixed booking slots — 10:30, 11:00, then 2:30 to 4:00 only. - Insurance verified before the calendar is even mentioned. - Message-only during lunch, no booking after 5 PM, weekends to urgent care. - A scripted greeting read word for word. - Different rules per provider or per location. - A specific order of questions, or questions the AI must never ask twice. In those cases, do not try to force it through the free-text fields. How to ask for one 1. Send what your front desk already follows — a call script, a flowchart, a decision tree, an SOP. Word, PDF, a Google Doc link or a photo of the paper version all work. If nothing is written down, list the rules in plain language. 2. Add two or three example calls: "New patient calls at 4:49 AM → take a message, do not offer a slot." 3. Email team@healos.ai with your practice name, the document, the examples, and who at the practice signs off on the final version. What stays yours while a custom workflow is running Your Settings page shows a banner saying the call script is managed by HealOS. These still work from Settings exactly as before: the greeting and AI name, EHR actions and booking defaults, transfer numbers, and intake-form settings. Call-handling rules and FAQs typed into Settings are saved but do not change the custom script. Send changes to us and they are usually live within a day. Not sure whether your case needs this? Send the script anyway. If a setting already covers it, we will point you at it.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026

AI Frontdesk troubleshooting

It did not transfer, even though routing is set up The number is missing its country code, or the row is not set to Warm transfer. Enter +1 and ten digits, save, and test from a cell phone. It hangs up on people asking for a receptionist, or says nobody is available Your staff line was busy or unanswered, or an iPhone screened the call. Add a second live-person destination, save the HealOS outbound number in staff phones, and turn off Call Screening. Callers asking for a person end up at billing Billing was the only transfer number configured. Give "Caller insists on a live person" its own number. "Would you like to connect?" repeated several times The transfer reached your own auto-attendant instead of a person. Transfer to a direct line or extension. A lot of calls drop before the AI speaks The forwarding rule has "confirm connection" or "press 1 to accept" switched on. Turn it off — the AI cannot press a key. See Your number and forwarding. "The doctor isn't available" when the schedule is open Provider hours in HealOS do not match the EHR, or the provider is mapped to more than one location. Match the hours; keep one location per provider. It said it booked, but nothing is on the calendar Open the call's Events tab. Either the booking errored in the EHR, or it landed on a different provider or location. If Events shows an error, send us the call time. Patients told "we'll call you back" instead of being booked weeks out Maximum booking window is too short. Raise it or turn it off. Appointments land hours off A timezone mismatch between HealOS, the EHR or the Google calendar. Check Timezone in the practice profile first. "Patient not found" for an established patient A spelling or date-of-birth mismatch, or a nickname on the chart. The AI asks callers to spell the surname and reads the date of birth back; correcting the chart fixes it for good. Even a test call only takes a message No EHR or calendar is connected yet, or Auto-Schedule Appointments is off. Settings will not save — "updated somewhere else" Someone else edited settings, or the page sat open too long. Reload and save again. The AI stopped answering entirely Remove forwarding so calls ring your desk, then tell us at once. We send the missed-call list afterwards so nobody is lost. What to send us The caller's number (or "web test"), the date and time, and what you expected to happen. Every call is traceable from that.

Last updated on Sep 29, 2026