What makes an allied health practice's phone different
A physiotherapist, a speech therapist, a podiatrist or an osteopath usually works alone or with a few colleagues, without a full-time receptionist, and with their hands on the patient. The phone rings during sessions, the voicemail fills up, and each message needs a callback between two patients.
The calls themselves fall into a few families, almost always the same ones. Sorting them once means knowing who should deal with them.
| Type of call | What you need to get | Who handles it |
|---|---|---|
| New patient with a prescription | Reason as described, number of sessions, availability | Reception: first appointment or waiting list |
| Course of sessions | Regular slots | Reception |
| Session to rearrange or cancel | The appointment concerned, another slot | Reception |
| Practical question | Prescription, health insurance card, home visits, duration, fees | Reception, with your written answers |
| Question about treatment or pain | A clear message | The practitioner |
| Referring doctor, hospital | A transfer or a priority message | The practitioner |
| Warning signs | Immediate referral to the emergency services | No one at the practice: the emergency services |
Most of these calls don't need the practitioner. They need a reception that knows the practice's rules.
Courses of sessions
This is what's special about allied health: a call rarely produces a single appointment; it often produces a series. Each profession has its own logic.
- Physiotherapist: a prescription, a course of sessions to schedule over several weeks, at the same times if possible, at the practice or at home.
- Speech therapist: an assessment first, then regular sessions over a long period, on the same day and at the same time, fitting around the school timetable for children.
- Podiatrist: routine foot care and an assessment for insoles don't take the same time; the reason determines the slot.
- Osteopath: more widely spaced sessions, and sometimes slots reserved for specific groups, such as babies, pregnant women or athletes.
Write down the rules that follow from this, practitioner by practitioner:
- the length of the first appointment (assessment, first session) and of the following ones;
- the slots open to courses of sessions and those you keep for new patients, otherwise courses fill the calendar weeks in advance;
- slots reserved for a specific group or for home-visit rounds;
- what happens at the end of a course: a new prescription, a check-up appointment, or nothing.
The calendar then needs to reflect these rules: one calendar per practitioner, with breaks and time off clearly marked as busy. Our Google Calendar guide details these settings.
Cancellations and the waiting list
Making cancelling easy
A session cancelled the day before can be filled; a session missed without notice is lost. Patients who can't make it must be able to let you know at any time, without reaching voicemail, and be offered another slot in the same call. A confirmation by SMS, then a reminder the day before each session, do the rest: our guide to confirmation SMS gives ready-to-use examples, with no medical reason in the text.
Keeping a useful waiting list
When demand exceeds the places available, the waiting list becomes a working tool, provided it is kept properly. For each request, note:
- the name, the number and, for a child, the parent's name;
- the reason as the patient describes it, and the prescriber;
- availability: possible days and times;
- the date of the call, to respect the order in which requests came in.
On the phone, give the waiting time you have set, never an improvised one, and say who will call back when a place becomes free. When the list is closed, say so tactfully and give the referral you have planned. Our speech therapists page shows a complete registration call.
Health data: hosting and discretion
From the moment an appointment is booked, the practice collects information relating to health: the reason for the consultation, the number of sessions prescribed, sometimes the name of a doctor. In France, hosting health data on behalf of a healthcare professional is reserved for HDS-certified hosts. The details of the rule and its limits are explained in our guide to the HDS-hosted voice agent. This guide is not legal advice: to find out exactly how the rules apply to your profession, refer to official sources or to your professional body.
Beyond hosting, three rules of discretion apply to reception, whether human or AI:
- no medical advice, on an exercise, a pain or a treatment: the question goes to the practitioner;
- no confirmation to a third party that someone is being treated at the practice, or of the reason for their sessions;
- no reason in SMS messages, which appear on a screen that others can see.
Who answers what: three set-ups
- The solo practitioner. The agent takes all calls during sessions and out of hours; the practitioner reads the summaries between patients and calls back the cases that need it.
- The group practice without a receptionist. A single number, one calendar per practitioner, and each call directed to the right practitioner according to the reason or the name requested.
- The practice with a part-time receptionist. They keep reception during their hours; conditional forwarding sends the calls they can't take to the agent, during their break and after they leave.
Our guide “medical secretary or AI” compares these options in detail, and our comparison with call answering services weighs up the human alternative.
What Sayelo does for an allied health practice
Sayelo answers during your sessions and announces that it is an AI from the very first sentence. It reads each practitioner's calendar in real time, in Google Calendar, Microsoft 365 or Cal.com, with its slots and durations, and schedules courses of sessions. An anti-double-booking lock protects every slot. Confirmation and cancellation SMS and the reminder the day before are switched on by default. It rearranges and cancels sessions if you allow it, takes a qualified message for a waiting list request or a medical question, and transfers according to your rules. It never gives medical advice and refers warning signs to the emergency services.
Call data is hosted in France by an HDS-certified host, on all plans. The transcript and the email summary are included everywhere; audio recording, included from the Essentiel plan upwards, is never switched on by default.
The physiotherapists, podiatrists and osteopaths pages show a typical call for each profession, and the medical practices page brings together what Sayelo does for healthcare. Plans are on the pricing page, with a 14-day free trial.
