Best AI Assistants for High Patient Call Volumes

Many medical practices face a familiar problem: phones ring constantly during peak hours while patients wait on hold, calls go to voicemail, and staff struggle to keep up. The result is predictable—frustrated patients, overwhelmed staff, and lost opportunities.

What High-Volume Practices Need

When you’re handling hundreds of calls a day, you need a system that can manage many calls at once without breaking down. If you decide to try an AI assistant, as hundreds of practices already have, it should:

• Handle multiple calls at once. Not just queue them, but actually talk to 20-50+ patients simultaneously.
• Route calls intelligently. Send urgent calls to the right people, queue routine requests appropriately.
• Connect to your EHR in real-time. See schedules as they actually are, not how they were an hour ago.
• Stay accurate when busy. Some systems get worse during rush hours; yours shouldn’t.
• Hand off smoothly. When a call needs a human, transfer the full context.
• Stay HIPAA compliant. Especially important when handling high transaction volumes.

Top AI Assistants for High Call Volumes

1. Talkie.ai

• Helps 300,000 patients a month
• Multi-channel communication means patients can both call and text the practice, 24/7
• Talkie’s AI agents have multiple skills, including scheduling, prescription refills support, appointment reminders, waitlist management, new patient intake, FAQ automation, and more.
• The solution is multilingual, with supported languages including English, Spanish, Korean, and 50+ other languages.
• The deepest integration on the market with 4 EHRs: athenahealth, ModMed EMA, Elation Health, eMedicalPractice. Patient conversations are captured, summarized, and they show up directly in your EHR along with appointments, ensuring real-time updates without manual data entry.
• Initially built out as a voice-only solution before adding text so the voice quality and interaction is superior.

Standout feature: Offers ongoing customization through weekly check-ins, real-time adjustments, and an active feedback loop.

2. Sully.ai

• Integrates with multiple EHRs (e.g. Epic, Cerner, MEDITECH)
• Adapts to specific medical specialties
• Verifies patient insurance before visits

Key strength: Offers multiple AI medical roles (e.g. Scribe, Triage Nurse, and Medical Coder) under one system.

3. Vocca.ai

• Founded in 2024 in France, with $5.5M seed round raised in 2025
• Patients can interact with agents via voice or text
• Helps prevent no-shows through outbound communication

Key strength: Reports 4.4 / 5 patient satisfaction.

4. Simbie.ai 

• Can both receive and place calls to patients, providers, and pharmacies
• Integrates with multiple EHRs (e.g. gGastro, DrChrono, Legend)
• AI agents can deliver educational content to patients, based on their diagnosis

Key strength: Designed and built by clinicians.

5. OmniMD AI Front Desk

• End-to-end automation: scheduling, insurance verification, billing
• Patients receive summaries, lab results, etc after the visit
• Integrates with tools like Twilio, Stripe, Trizetto

Key strength: For in-office check-in, patients can use a facial recognition kiosk or scan a QR code.

6. healow Genie

• Developed by eClinicalWorks, a major EHR vendor
• Predictive analytics for no-show risk and proactive interventions
• 24/7 after-hours coverage

Key strength: When necessary, the AI escalates the call to a human—and if the caller needs to wait, the AI estimates their wait time and offers alternatives.

7. ARIA by DoctorConnect

• Speaks 34 languages
• Capable of sending text messages with relevant information (e.g. directions)
• The solution can either integrate with the DoctorConnect platform, or operate as a standalone service

Key strength: Developed by DoctorConnect, an established healthcare communications company founded in 1992.

Common Mistakes to Avoid when Choosing the Best AI Assistant

• Not verifying concurrent call capacity claims. “Handles 100 calls” could mean it queues 100 calls or actually converses with 100 patients simultaneously. Ask vendors for proof of concurrent handling during peak loads, not theoretical maximums.

• Ignoring EHR integration depth. “Works with athenahealth” might mean read-only access that syncs hourly, or it might mean real-time two-way data flow. Ask specifically: How often does it sync? Can it write back to the EHR? Does it handle your custom appointment types?

• Focusing only on upfront cost. The cheapest solution that requires constant human oversight costs more than a pricier one that truly automates 80%+ of calls. Calculate total cost including staff time spent on escalations and fixing AI mistakes.

• Skipping the staff training. Your team needs to know when to let AI handle calls and when to step in. Poor escalation protocols create chaos. Budget time for training staff on the new workflow, not just the technical setup.

• Not planning for the implementation timeline. Practices that try to go live in one week inevitably face patient-facing problems. Budget 4-6 weeks from contract to fully optimized system. Rushing creates avoidable friction.

High call volumes aren’t going away—if anything, they’re increasing as practices consolidate and patient expectations for immediate access grow. The right AI assistant eliminates hold times, reduces staff burnout, and ensures every patient call gets answered.

The solutions above all handle high call volumes effectively, but they take different approaches. Your choice depends on whether you prioritize unlimited scalability, conversation quality, specialty-specific workflows, or enterprise integration.

Whatever you choose, test it thoroughly with real patient calls during your actual peak hours. That’s the only way to know if it works for your practice.