The most important decision in a clinic is what the agent may and may not do. It can answer questions about opening hours, location and preparing for a visit, and it can book, move and cancel appointments. It does not diagnose, give medical advice or judge how serious a symptom is. Those calls go to a member of staff straight away. We write this boundary into the script with you.
Recalls are a good fit for an agent. Your team chooses who is due, approves the wording and sets calling hours. Patients who do not answer get a second attempt and an SMS. After closing, the after-hours agent takes a message or pages the on-call person for anything your rules mark as urgent. In the morning, staff open a list rather than a full voicemail box. Nothing is set live until your team has reviewed the workflow.
Collect your appointment types, durations and any rules about who sees whom. Write down which phrases should always be passed to a nurse or doctor. Agree who answers a transferred call at each hour. Track how many calls reach your desk at opening time before and after launch, so you have something real to compare.
Hospital groups and multi-site clinics add one more layer: which site, which department, which clinician. Map those out before the build, since they decide where each call goes. A simple table of departments, hours and transfer numbers is often all we need to begin the blueprint.