An AI phone agent is worth considering if you miss calls that matter and your own records show it, and not otherwise. It answers calls on your clinic number, but it does not give medical advice and it does not replace the people who talk to your patients. Whether it is worth A$1,490 a month depends on your call log, not on the technology.
Pro, the plan that includes it, adds an AI agent on your clinic number, set up with you, and a patient portal. I will explain what to measure, what to ask, and where I think a clinic should say no.
What does an AI agent on a clinic number do?
It answers the call, handles the first conversation and moves the caller towards a booked consultation, in the same way our written replies do. In our product it is set up with you, so it follows your rules rather than generic ones.
It is the phone version of the first reply: quick, consistent and available when your team is on another line or the clinic is closed. What happens after the booking is up to your people.
What must it not do?
- Give medical advice. Clinical questions go to your team.
- Promise results or call a procedure safe. The wording rules apply to speech as well as to text.
- Make offers or set deadlines. Those count as inducements.
- Name prescription medicines. Describe the concern and offer a consultation.
- Pretend to be a person. I would want callers told plainly what they are talking to.
The first four are the same rules this site's check applies to every message. The last is my own view as a founder, not a rule I can cite from the guidelines. Ask your adviser what disclosure they want.
How do you tell if you miss calls that matter?
- 1Pull your phone log for a month, including missed and unanswered calls.
- 2Mark the ones outside opening hours and those during peak times.
- 3Check which callers left a voicemail and which rang back or booked elsewhere.
- 4Estimate how many were new enquiries rather than existing patients.
- 5Multiply by your average visit value, with a cautious share for those who went elsewhere.
This is the same arithmetic as in the after-hours cost article, applied to calls. The share who go elsewhere is the number nobody can give you in advance. Use a cautious one and compare the result with A$1,490 a month.
What are the alternatives?
- Staff the phone longer. The most human option, paid in wages.
- An answering service or voicemail with a fast call-back. Simple, and the speed of the call-back is the whole value.
- A text-back or chat route. Send missed callers a link to a written enquiry, which a system like Grow can answer in seconds.
- An AI agent on the number. Pro's route.
If most of your enquiries arrive in writing, Grow at A$697 a month covers that without the phone agent. Pro makes sense when the phone is a main way people reach you.
What should you ask before saying yes?
- 1What does it say when it cannot answer, and who takes over?
- 2How are calls recorded, who can hear them and for how long are they kept?
- 3How does the wording get checked against the Ahpra and TGA rules?
- 4Who approves what it says, and can you change it?
- 5What does it cost to stop?
On the last, Conduit has no minimum term and you can cancel any time. On data, our security page covers where patient data is held, who can see it and how to have it deleted. I have not described call recording details here because I would be guessing at how your set-up works, so ask us in a demo.
What does the patient portal add?
Pro also includes a patient portal. I do not want to claim more than our pricing page does: it lists a patient portal as part of Pro, and the details of what it covers for your clinic are something to see in a demo rather than read in a paragraph from me.
My general view is that a portal earns its place when your patients already ask to see forms, bookings or messages in one place. If they do not, it is an extra to switch on later.
What is the honest case against?
Some patients want a person, especially for a decision about their body, and some will hang up on anything that is not one. If your clinic's reputation rests on the personal touch on the phone, an agent may cut against that, and no call log will show it.
There is also a set-up cost in attention. Someone at the clinic has to decide what the agent says, approve it and review how calls went in the first weeks. That is real work, even though we set it up with you. If nobody has the time, do not start.
How do you decide?
Decide on the call log, not on curiosity. If missed calls are a clear, costly problem and your adviser is comfortable with how the agent is set up, Pro is worth a test. If your enquiries mainly arrive in writing, start with Grow, and if your main gap is returning patients, start with Start.
The plan comparison sets out the three side by side. To see the agent on your own clinic, book a demo. There is no number of calls or bookings I can promise you.