Managed Agents at Previously $0.06 $0.03/minManaged Agents are Previously $0.06 $0.03/min.

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Medical office answering service that routes every request to staff.

Send refill requests to staff, book care team callbacks, and page the on-call nurse for urgent symptoms.

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Get refills to staff and urgent calls to 911 and the nurse

Patients reach the right person for a refill or a result, and urgent symptoms get your 911 script.

The agent reads hours, locations and accepted insurance from lists you approve, and says so when something isn't on them.

What a medical office phone answering service does with each patient call

What is a medical office answering service?

A medical office answering service picks up your practice's phone when the front desk can't, then gets each request to the person allowed to act on it. Refills go to staff, result questions become care team callbacks, and symptoms on your list get your 911 script.

  • Read office information
  • Send a refill request
  • Request a care team callback
  • Page the on-call nurse
  • Transfer to the nurse line

What does an AI answering service for medical office calls cost?

The agent is $0.03 per minute of call time, plus LLM usage and telephony, so a quick hours question costs less than a refill request. Cartesia is HIPAA compliant and signs a business associate agreement with healthcare customers, which practice managers usually ask about next.

I need a refill on my blood pressure medicine.

I can pass that to staff, and a clinician decides. Which medicine and pharmacy, and your name and date of birth?

Joon Park, July 4th, 1971. Lisinopril 10 milligrams, Alder Road pharmacy.

Does an answering service for small medical office teams make sense?

Yes, because whoever holds the phone there is also checking patients in. On a Monday morning the agent takes each refill's name, date of birth, medication and pharmacy and sends it to staff, while hours and insurance questions get answers from the lists you approve.

  • Refill request, Joon Park1:58
  • Blood work question, callback asked1:24
  • Chest pain, 911 script read0:51

Will an after hours medical office answering service give advice?

No. The agent can't see a result, won't name a dose and decides nothing about a prescription. A symptom on your urgent list gets the 911 script you wrote, then a page to the on-call nurse. Any other symptom rings your nurse line, at 9 p.m. or 9 a.m.

Request sent to staff

Did the patient's refill request or result question reach staff as a saved request or callback before the call ended?

What your medical office gets from an answering service staff can trust

Daytime overflow and an after hours answering service for medical office phones run on the same lists. These are the calls that stop interrupting check-in.

Refill requests arrive complete

Name, date of birth, medication and pharmacy come through together, so staff don't phone the patient to ask which blood pressure pill they meant.

Result questions reach the care team

The patient gets a callback request with the test named and a yes or no on voicemail. Nobody on the phone guesses what Monday's blood work said.

Urgent symptoms follow your wording

Chest pain, trouble breathing and anything else on your urgent list get the 911 script you approved, then a page to the on-call nurse.

Insurance answers match your list

Change the accepted insurance list once and the next caller hears it. If a plan or a doctor's schedule isn't there, the agent says so and points them to the front desk.

Patient calls run under a BAA

Cartesia signs business associate agreements with healthcare customers and holds SOC 2 Type II. Your own policies and other vendors remain yours to manage.

Clinical decisions stay with clinicians

The agent gives no medical advice, reads no results and names no doses. A refill request is only a request until a clinician at your office decides.

Patients read pill bottles over the phone, and the agent waits

Medication names, birth dates and pharmacy names are the hard part of a medical call. Patients spell, pause and correct themselves, and the conversation has to survive that.

  • $0.03per minute
  • #1on Speech Agent Arena and EVA-Bench
  • 24/7answers every call, at any hour

Holds its turn while they find the bottle

Patients stop to read a label or ask a spouse which pharmacy. The agent stays quiet until they finish.

Your lists, your LLM

Pick the LLM. Tools let it read office information, send a refill request, ask for a care team callback and page the nurse.

A voice that fits the practice

Try voices from the library until one sounds like your office and says your practice name clearly.

An AI agent beside a live medical answering service and voicemail

An outsourced answering service for medical office calls is the usual benchmark, so here it sits beside the agent and voicemail. The live service takes one of these rows.

Cartesia agentLive answering serviceOffice voicemail
Monday morning call spikeCalls run at the same timeCallers may wait for an operatorMessages stack up for staff
Refill requestSent to staff with medication and pharmacyOften a typed message staff retypeWhatever the patient remembered to say
Test result questionCare team callback, nothing read outUsually a message for the officeA callback, once someone hears it
Urgent symptomsYour 911 script, then a nurse pageUsually a scripted page to the on-callThe greeting tells them to dial 911
Patient who wants a personNurse line transfer or a callback requestA person answers from the first helloNo
BAACartesia signs oneUsually available, confirm before you signDepends on your phone vendor
How you pay$0.03 per minute, LLM usage and telephony extraUsually a monthly fee, then charges by call or minuteIncluded with your phone system

See which calls got a request to staff

Every call is recorded and transcribed. See which calls sent a refill request, which booked a care team callback, and which ended with neither.

Launch an AI medical answering service in three steps

Start building

  1. Clone the medical front desk

    Copy this agent, then load your hours, locations, accepted insurance and urgent symptom list.

  2. Connect staff and your office line

    Point the refill and callback requests at your system through tools you configure, set the nurse line and page, then forward your office number.

  3. Test a refill and a chest pain call

    Request a lisinopril refill, then report chest pain. Go live once the transcripts show a saved request and the 911 script read as written.

Enterprise-grade security

  • HIPAA compliant badge

    HIPAA compliant

  • SOC 2 Type 2 badge

    SOC 2 Type 2

  • GDPR badge

    GDPR

Medical answering service FAQs

What is a medical office answering service?

A medical phone answering service run by a voice agent. It picks up your office line when the front desk can't, sends refill requests to staff, books care team callbacks for result questions and reads your 911 script for symptoms on your list.

Can an automated medical answering service handle refill requests?

Yes. The agent takes the patient's name, date of birth, medication and pharmacy, and sends the refill request to staff without promising an outcome. A clinician at your office decides.

Is it a HIPAA compliant medical answering service?

Yes. Cartesia is HIPAA compliant and SOC 2 Type II certified, and signs business associate agreements with healthcare customers. More on the HIPAA answering service page.

How much does a medical answering service cost?

Billing follows call length, so a quick hours question costs less than a refill request with a medication spelled out. The agent is $0.03 per minute of call time. LLM usage is billed separately. A Cartesia phone number adds $0.014 per minute, and that charge drops to nothing if you bring your own Twilio account or SIP trunk. The free plan includes $1 of agent calls a month, so you can test the agent before you pay. See pricing.

Can a medical answering service give medical advice or read test results?

No. The agent records the request, and a clinician at your office decides.

What does a medical answering service do when a caller describes chest pain?

It reads the 911 script you wrote for your urgent list, then pages the on-call nurse.

Can the agent transfer calls to the nurse line?

Yes. Symptoms and clinical questions go to your nurse line. Refill requests and result questions are saved for staff instead, and you decide which symptoms are urgent.

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