Helen AI Receptionist FAQ

What is Helen, the AI Receptionist?

The AI Receptionist is a phone-based conversational agent that acts as an AI receptionist for medical practices. It helps existing patients manage their appointments by handling booking, cancelling, and rescheduling requests, while intelligently transferring complex cases or emergencies to practice staff.

You can learn more about Helen and request a demo here.

What tasks can the AI Receptionist handle?

Book new appointments for existing patients
Cancel existing appointments
Reschedule existing appointments
Verify patient identity using name, date of birth, and mobile number
Transfer calls to practice staff when appropriate
Detect and immediately escalate medical emergencies

What types of medical practices can use this system?

The system currently only supports General Practice (GP) clinics and bookings with General Practitioners. It does not currently support booking non-GPs, even non-GPs who work at a GP Medical Centre, such as psychologists, physios, etc.

How does the AI Receptionist handle medical emergencies?

The AI Receptionist is programmed with strict medical safety protocols. If it detects a potential medical emergency, it immediately transfers the patient to practice staff and instructs them to call 000 or go to the nearest emergency department.

What if the AI Receptionist can't understand the patient?

If the AI has repeated difficulty understanding the patient or using the booking functions, it will transfer the call to practice staff with an explanation.

Functionality - Identifying Patients

How does the Voicebot match the patient calling to their existing patient file?

The AI Receptionist asks for three verification points: full name, date of birth, and mobile phone number. It prioritises date of birth and mobile number for accuracy and matches against existing patient records.

What happens if a patient doesn't have a mobile phone number?

In the rare case where a patient doesn't have a mobile number on file, the system will transfer them to practice staff to handle the verification and booking manually.

Can patients book appointments for family members?

No, the AI Receptionist only handles appointments for the person calling. If someone tries to book for another person or multiple people, they're automatically transferred to the practice staff.

Functionality - Making Bookings

Can the AI Receptionist handle new patients or only existing patients?

Currently, the AI Receptionist only handles existing patients who are already in the practice's system. New patient inquiries are automatically transferred to the practice staff.

What types of appointments can the AI Receptionist book?

The AI Receptionist can book standard in-person appointments and telehealth appointments (if configured).

Can patients request specific doctors?

Yes, patients can request specific doctors. The AI will search for available appointments with that practitioner or across all available practitioners if no preference is specified.

How does the AI Receptionist handle telehealth appointments?

If the practice offers telehealth, the AI first asks whether the patient wants an in-person or telehealth appointment, then searches for appropriate availability based on their choice.

How does appointment verification work?

Before making any booking changes, the AI verifies all details with the patient, including practitioner name, date, and time, and only proceeds after explicit confirmation. Because patients can sometimes fail to remember the exact time, fuzzy matching is used when matching patients' times.

Will the Voicebot respect my practice’s ‘Appointment delisting period' and 'Appointment cancellation prevention period’?

Appointment delisting period: The amount of time before an appointment will no longer be available for booking by patients.
Appointment cancellation prevention period: The time limit before an appointment after which patients are no longer allowed to cancel it.

Yes, the Voicebot will respect these time periods.

How does the AI Receptionist handle an appointment type that would require payment if it were made online?

The AI Receptionist cannot take payments, but this will be considered in future.

Is there a maximum number of booking attempts that can be made in a call?

Yes, to prevent abuse, there is a maximum of 5 booking attempts that can be made in a single call.

Is the AI Receptionist compatible with my practice management software?

Yes, the system can access the same integrations as the main Healthengine system but is currently officially supported for Best Practice and Medical Director. Please contact us to request a non-officially supported PMS that is otherwise supported by Healthengine.

System Reliability & Support

What happens if the AI Receptionist goes down?

If the Healthengine Appointment Connector is down, users will be automatically transferred to the front desk.

If the bot is down, it will either fail to pick up the transferred line or respond with silence, depending on the issue. We will monitor for this occurrence.

How many simultaneous calls can the AI handle?

The AI receptionist isn't limited by simultaneous call volume on modern phone systems. However, if multiple patients request transfers simultaneously, they may queue at your front desk depending on your phone system's capacity.

What’s the longest call that the AI can handle?

To prevent abuse and to protect the customer experience, Helen will terminate a call if it exceeds 20 minutes.

Can Healthengine disable the AI Receptionist remotely if needed?

Yes, Healthengine can disable the AI at any point without involving your phone provider. This results in a message stating the system is unavailable, followed by transfer to practice staff.

What kind of support is provided?

The system includes technical support for setup, configuration, and ongoing operation. Support covers phone system integration, practice settings configuration, and troubleshooting.

It's important to note that some aspects of this system can only be configured by your practice's phone system service providers, and Healthengine cannot take responsibility for contacting them in all cases.

Customisation & Configuration

Can we customise the AI's voice or personality?

Voice customisation isn't available in the current release but will be considered for future versions. The AI maintains a professional, conversational tone similar to a helpful receptionist.

How does the AI learn about our practice policies?

The system accesses your practice information from the Healthengine database, including practitioner details, appointment types, and practice-specific settings.

Can we customise the greeting message?

The system uses a standard professional greeting that can be configured. The default IVR message prompting patients to "Press 1 for the AI receptionist" is customisable.

How does the AI handle our specific appointment types?

Practices can configure one appointment type used for all appointments and optionally configure a telehealth appointment type for telehealth appointments. Configuring the telehealth appointment type also activates the telehealth appointment flow.

Data and Privacy

What data does the AI Receptionist collect and store?

The AI Receptionist processes information that patients choose to share during calls, including verification details and appointment preferences. Call transcripts pass through our partners for processing with appropriate data protection measures. 30 days of logs are also retained as per our privacy data usage policy.

Do we have access to call recordings and transcripts?

Practices don't have direct access to call recordings or transcripts, but they do have access to a dashboard showing information about calls and system usage metrics.

How is patient privacy protected?

The system follows strict data protection protocols. An IVR message informs patients that calls will be recorded, and they can opt out by requesting transfer to staff if they don't want their information processed by the AI Receptionist.

Further FAQ

How will my phone system identify when the virtual assistant is passing a call back (e.g. needs a human)? How do we avoid a loop where a patient gets routed back to Helen?

The way the AI Receptionist will be integrated will be in between your public listed number (which is what patients call) and your "Transfer Number", which is where calls are diverted to before reaching your front desk. We will liaise with your phone company to set this up, so if a call needs to be transferred from the receptionist, it will go straight to your transfer number, and if a patient opts out of the AI receptionist, the call will follow the current IVR flow (which is likely a reroute back to the front desk).

Need More Help?

Contact our Support Team:

Phone: 1300 377 639
Email: support@healthengine.com.au
Ai chat: Use the Help chat icon in your Practice Admin portal, located on the top-right corner of your Practice Admin page, for 24/7 AI assistance
Live chat: Use the Help chat icon in your Practice Admin portal, located on the top-right corner of your Practice Admin page, for live agent assistance from 7 am to 4 pm AWST (6 am to 4 pm AWST on Daylight Saving)