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Healthcare & Dental

AI voice assistants for medical, dental, and wellness practices. Handle appointment scheduling, patient inquiries, and after-hours calls while maintaining HIPAA compliance.

Common Use Cases

Appointment Scheduling

  • New patient bookings
  • Follow-up appointments
  • Cancellations and rescheduling
  • Appointment reminders

Patient Support

  • Office hours and location
  • Insurance accepted
  • New patient information
  • General practice questions

After-Hours Coverage

  • Emergency triage
  • Urgent vs. non-urgent assessment
  • Transfer to on-call provider
  • Message taking

Scheduling Integration: Acuity

Acuity Scheduling is the booking platform Voka AI connects to for medical, dental and wellness practices. It's what our healthcare customers use today.

Key features:

  • Direct appointment booking into your Acuity calendar
  • A calendar per provider — book into a specific doctor's or hygienist's schedule
  • Real-time availability checking, so the assistant offers slots that are genuinely open
  • Appointment types — new patient exam, follow-up, consultation, each with its own length

Setup:

  1. Go to IntegrationsAcuity Scheduling
  2. Click Connect and log in to Acuity
  3. Enable the integration on your assistant's Agent tab
  4. Reference your appointment types in the assistant's instructions

Your assistant can then check Dr. Smith's calendar, Dr. Jones' calendar, and book the patient with the right provider.

Check your intake questions first

If your Acuity appointment types have a long list of required intake fields, the assistant has to collect every one of them out loud before the booking will go through — and a booking will fail outright if it can't. Trim required fields to the essentials before you go live. See Acuity intake forms.

Practice management systems. We don't connect to practice management or EHR systems today — only to the scheduling platforms listed in the integrations overview. If your scheduling lives inside your PM system, run the assistant without an integration to start: it answers every call, collects the patient's details and reason for calling, and passes them to your front desk to book. Tell us what you use and we'll add it to what we prioritise.

Acuity Integration Guide →


Sample Assistant Configuration

Instructions Template

You are a professional receptionist for [Practice Name], a [specialty] practice.

PROVIDERS:
- Dr. Smith (General practice)
- Dr. Jones (Pediatrics)
- Dr. Williams (Surgery consultations)

SERVICES:
- New patient exams (60 min)
- Follow-up visits (30 min)
- Emergency visits (30 min)

HOURS:
Monday-Friday: 8am-5pm
Saturday: 9am-1pm (Emergency only)

HIPAA COMPLIANCE:
- Never discuss patient medical information
- Never confirm appointments without verification
- Transfer to staff for any medical questions

BOOKING PROCESS:
1. Ask what type of appointment they need
2. Ask if they have a provider preference
3. Check availability in that provider's calendar
4. Offer 2-3 available time slots
5. Collect: Name, phone, date of birth
6. Book the appointment in the scheduling system
7. Confirm: "You're scheduled with Dr. [Name] on [Date] at [Time]."

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL:
If patient mentions severe pain, bleeding, or urgent symptoms:
"This sounds urgent. Let me connect you with our triage nurse immediately."
[Transfer to medical staff]

TRANSFERS:
Always transfer for:
- Medical advice or diagnoses
- Insurance verification
- Prescription requests
- Billing questions

Voice Selection

Recommended voices:

  • luna - Professional, reassuring
  • astra - Warm, empathetic
  • sirius - Calm, professional

HIPAA Compliance

What your assistant should NOT do:

  • Discuss patient medical information
  • Provide medical advice or diagnoses
  • Confirm appointments without ID verification
  • Share patient records

What your assistant CAN do:

  • Schedule appointments
  • Provide office hours and location
  • Answer general practice questions
  • Transfer to appropriate staff

Best practice: Configure your assistant to transfer any medical questions to your staff immediately.


Multiple Provider Scheduling

If each provider has their own calendar in Acuity, your assistant can route appointments to the right one:

Example conversation:

Assistant: "Who would you like to see?"
Patient: "I need to see Dr. Smith."
Assistant: "Let me check Dr. Smith's availability..."
[Checks Dr. Smith's calendar in Acuity]
Assistant: "Dr. Smith has openings on Tuesday at 2pm or Thursday at 10am. Which works better?"

Automatic routing:

  • New patients → Next available provider
  • Follow-ups → Same provider as last visit
  • Specific requests → Requested provider
  • Specialist needs → Appropriate specialist

Best Practices

Do:

  • ✅ Keep HIPAA compliance as top priority
  • ✅ Transfer medical questions to staff
  • ✅ Configure emergency protocols clearly
  • ✅ Test with multiple provider scenarios
  • ✅ Update provider availability regularly

Don't:

  • ❌ Let assistant discuss diagnoses or treatment
  • ❌ Confirm appointments without verification
  • ❌ Share any patient information
  • ❌ Provide medical advice of any kind

Success Metrics

Healthcare practices using Voka AI report:

  • 95%+ call answer rate (vs. 70% with staff only)
  • 40% more appointments booked
  • 60% reduction in no-shows (automated reminders)
  • 24/7 emergency triage coverage
  • Staff freed up for patient care

Getting Started

  1. Set up your first assistant
  2. Connect Acuity Scheduling
  3. Configure HIPAA-compliant instructions
  4. Test with multiple providers
  5. Go live and monitor