Ring your team first, or not
By default your team rings first and the receptionist picks up only when nobody answers. You can also let it answer at once outside opening hours, or during custom hours you set, like lunch or evenings.
AI Receptionist
AI receptionist for clinics and healthcare practices
Ona's AI receptionist is an AI phone agent for clinics that answers your practice line when your team can't, or first at the hours you choose. It books, reschedules and cancels visits for verified patients on your live calendar, captures new callers as leads or patients, and leaves a summary, recording and transcript on every call.
- Ring-first or answer-first
- Books, reschedules, cancels
- New callers become leads
- Summary, recording, transcript
Ona's AI receptionist is an AI phone agent for clinics and healthcare practices. It answers your practice's line when your team can't, or first at the hours you choose. It books, reschedules and cancels visits on your live calendar for verified patients and turns new callers into leads or registered patients. Every call ends up in Omnichannel with a summary, a recording and a transcript. It runs inside Ona, the AI-native practice management platform, so the phone line, the calendar and the patient record are one system.
It fits practices that lose patients to missed calls: a solo clinician with no front desk, a busy desk that needs cover at lunch, a practice that wants evenings and weekends answered. That includes primary care, behavioral health, physical therapy, women's health, nutrition, functional medicine, naturopathic doctors and medspas. It speaks English, follows your instructions and knowledge files, and puts a caller through to a person when they ask.
01 · Why it matters
A missed call is a missed patient.
Front desks get pulled in three directions at once. The phone is usually the one that suffers.
Your front desk is already checking people in, taking payments and answering the phone. The phone is the job that slips. New patients hear it ring out, current patients get voicemail, and the callback list grows faster than anyone can work it.
Hold music won't fix that. What helps is an extra pair of hands on the line. It picks up when nobody else can, books against your real schedule, and knows exactly what it shouldn't handle.
02 · What you get
A receptionist with no coffee breaks.
Books on your real calendar
Verified patients book, reschedule or cancel by phone. It offers times from the same availability as your booking page, respecting service length, buffers and which clinicians offer the service. Before a late cancellation, it mentions the fee.
New callers become leads or patients
Capture a lead and a new caller's name, number and reason land in Leads. Register as a patient and it collects their details (and insurance, if you take it), creates the patient, and can book on the same call.
Your instructions, your knowledge
Write the greeting and the rules it follows. Upload FAQs, price lists and policies as knowledge files, and add keyterms, such as clinician names, payers and places, so it hears them right.
A person when the caller asks
Turn on Transfer to staff on request and a caller who asks for someone is put through to your team, marked Transferred by AI with the reason. If nobody answers, they can leave a voicemail.
Safe by design
It never gives medical advice. It tells anyone describing an emergency to call emergency services, and verifies callers before touching an appointment. For prescription, results and billing questions it takes a message for your team.
See it in action
A first-time caller, captured as a lead.
No record on file and nobody free to pick up, yet the caller's details still land in Leads with a summary of what they need.
03 · How it works
How a call flows, from ring to record.
The call comes in
Your answering group rings first. If nobody picks up within your ring window, the receptionist answers. During answer-first hours it picks up straight away with your greeting.It works out what the caller needs
No menus, no keypresses. Before touching any appointment, it confirms who an existing patient is with their name plus a date of birth, phone number or email.It books, moves or cancels the visit
It offers two or three open times and reads back the service, clinician and time. It books only after a clear yes. The patient gets your practice's usual booking notice, plus any intake forms the service sends.New callers are captured
In lead mode it records the caller's name, contact details and a short, non-medical reason in Leads. In register mode it creates the patient and can book their first visit.The call lands in Omnichannel
A call card in the caller's conversation shows Answered by AI, a summary, the recording and a transcript that names every voice. The conversation is marked unread so someone reviews it.
04 · In practice
What it's for.
Solo clinician, no front desk
The phone stops being the bottleneck.
Existing patients book and reschedule while you're with someone else. New callers wait in Leads with a summary of what they want, ready for a callback.
Busy front desk
Lunch and the rush, covered.
Set custom hours for the windows your desk can't cover. The rest of the day your team rings first, and the receptionist only takes the calls nobody reaches.
After-hours coverage
Evenings and weekends answered.
Outside your opening hours it answers at once, in your clinic's timezone. Bookings land on the calendar overnight and everything else waits in Omnichannel for the morning.
Practices that register by phone
A new patient on the books in one call.
Register mode collects name, date of birth, contact details and insurance, then creates the patient and books the first visit. Tag receptionist bookings so your team can spot them on the schedule.
FAQ
What clinics ask before turning it on.
Is Ona an AI receptionist for clinics?
Yes. Ona's AI receptionist answers your practice's phone line when your team can't, or first at the hours you choose. It books, reschedules and cancels visits for verified patients on your live Ona calendar, and captures new callers as leads or registers them as patients. Every call gets a summary, a recording and a transcript.
When does the AI receptionist answer instead of my team?
You choose in Settings → AI Receptionist. Always ring first is the default: your answering group rings, and the AI picks up only if nobody answers. Outside opening hours and Custom hours let it answer at once at those times. A Right now line shows who picks up if the phone rings this minute.
Can the AI receptionist transfer a caller to a person?
Yes, when you turn on Transfer to staff on request. The caller hears that they're being connected and your answering group rings in the browser and on mobile. Whoever answers sees Transferred by AI and the reason. If nobody answers, the caller can leave a voicemail. It doesn't offer transfers unprompted and can't pick a specific person.
How does it handle urgent or medical calls?
It never gives medical advice, diagnoses or test interpretations. If a caller describes an emergency, it tells them to hang up and call emergency services. For prescriptions, results or billing, it takes the caller's details so your team can call back, and the call's summary says what they asked for.
Does it speak Spanish or other languages?
Not today. The receptionist and its transcripts are English only.
Will my patients know they're talking to AI?
You write the greeting, up to 500 characters, so you decide how it introduces itself. We recommend saying it's an AI assistant in the first line. Most patients are fine with it, and the honesty builds trust.
How do we get started, and what does it cost?
Turn it on in Settings → AI Receptionist. It answers on your practice's local number, the same one you text from. If you don't have one yet, Ona provisions it and registers it with the carriers, and Ona's team can port your existing number. The add-on starts at $100 per month for 400 call minutes, with larger tiers available and overage at $0.20 per minute.
Is the AI receptionist HIPAA compliant?
Calls, recordings and transcripts are encrypted in transit and at rest and stay in your Ona workspace. Every practice signs Ona's BAA when the workspace is created. Calls are recorded, so if your state requires callers to be told, say so in your greeting.
Ready when you are
Your phone, finally doing its job.
Book a fifteen-minute demo and we'll walk through a real call, set up with your instructions.