New referrals and self-referrals were booked in the order they arrived, so a suspicious mole could wait behind a routine appointment. The clinic wanted urgent cases seen first and every follow-up recall actually booked.
Three things kept going wrong, and each cost the business time, money or a customer.
Intake, booking and reminder agents, connected to the systems the business already ran on, with approvals on anything irreversible and a full log of every action.
Triage rules are clinical, so the consultants wrote them and the agent applies them; anything ambiguous goes to a consultant rather than being decided by the agent. We connected it to the clinic's system and referral inbox and ran a week of real referrals in shadow mode, with a consultant checking every triage decision.
Urgent referrals are now seen the same week rather than waiting behind routine appointments. Recalls are booked on time in 94 per cent of cases, up from roughly half. Consultants are no longer interrupted with booking questions, and the clinic has a record of every triage decision and why.
'A suspicious mole should never wait behind a routine check. Now it does not.'
Lead consultant
The practice's two receptionists were also running the front desk, so a third of calls went to voicemail at lunch and after 5pm. They wanted every call answered and every cancellation refilled, without hiring.
Enquiries arrived through Instagram, the website and WhatsApp at all hours, and the clinic replied the next working day. By then many had booked elsewhere. They wanted every enquiry answered within minutes and turned into a consultation.
A free 45-minute call. Tell us where the time goes; we'll tell you honestly whether an agent would help and what it would save.
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