Dental and healthcare
Dental practice
A new-patient enquiry triaged and booked, with anything clinical routed to a qualified person.
These are illustrative scenarios
An illustrative scenario written to show how a workflow would run. It is not a description of an existing customer.
The situation
A practice has one person on reception who is also handling patients arriving, the phone, and the payment terminal. Calls go unanswered during busy periods and after 18:00. Some of those callers are new patients, and a new patient who cannot get through calls the next practice on the list.
How the enquiry runs
A missed call turns into a booked appointment, with a strict boundary around anything clinical.
- 1Customer
A call at 19:15 goes unanswered
The practice is closed. The call is routed to the voice agent rather than to an answering machine.
- 2Agent
The voice agent answers
It states that it is an automated assistant for the practice, that it can take details and book appointments, and that clinical questions will be passed to the dentist.
- 3Customer
The caller explains
A new patient with toothache, asking whether they can be seen this week and roughly what a first appointment costs.
- 4Agent
Admin questions answered, clinical questions declined
It gives the published first-consultation fee and available slots. When the caller asks whether the pain sounds like an infection, the agent says clearly that it cannot answer clinical questions and that the dentist will address it at the appointment.
- 5Agent
Urgency is checked against agreed rules
It asks the small set of triage questions the practice defined — severity, swelling, duration — not to give advice, but to decide whether this needs to reach someone tonight.
I cannot give clinical advice, but so that we prioritise correctly: is there any swelling, and how long has the pain lasted?
- 6System
An appointment is provisionally booked
The earliest suitable slot is held, and the patient's details are captured as a new-patient record.
- 7System
The practice is notified
Because the answers matched the practice's urgency rule, a notification goes to the on-call number immediately rather than waiting for morning.
- 8Staff
Reception confirms in the morning
The record is already complete. Reception confirms the slot, sends the new-patient forms, and the dentist sees the triage answers before the appointment.
What ends up recorded
Enough for the practice to act, and nothing that constitutes a diagnosis.
- Name and contact number
- New or existing patient
- Reason for the call, in the caller's words
- Triage answers against the practice's agreed questions
- Urgency classification
- Provisional appointment slot
- Call recording or transcript, per the practice's retention policy
Where the person comes in
The agent handles scheduling, published fees, opening hours, and directions. It does not assess symptoms, suggest a cause, recommend treatment, or discuss medication. Every clinical question is declined explicitly and routed to a qualified person — a boundary written into the design, not a matter of the agent's judgement in the moment.
What this scenario depends on
- A phone line that can be conditionally routed to the agent
- A practice management or calendar system that allows provisional booking
- Triage questions and urgency thresholds defined and signed off by the practice
- A clear clinical boundary agreed in writing before launch
- Patient-data handling that meets the practice's legal obligations, including recording and retention
- Telephony and AI usage costs, billed to the practice directly
Other scenarios
The same mechanics, in a different sector.
Beauty and wellness
An after-hours booking enquiry answered, qualified, and turned into a confirmed appointment.
Local services
A job enquiry qualified on location, scope, and timing before it reaches the person on site.
E-commerce
Pre-purchase questions answered from live product data, with order issues routed to a person.