Healthcare communication has always been important for good patient care. For many years, hospitals, clinics, and healthcare groups used Interactive Voice Response (IVR) phone systems to handle many calls. These systems answer calls automatically and guide patients, helping reduce work for staff.
But old IVR systems have many problems. They often cause long wait times, many calls are missed, navigating through the menus is hard, and the system does not adjust to individual patient needs. These issues have made patients unhappy, tired out staff, and led to lost money for many healthcare groups in the United States.
These problems show the need for newer communication systems that can handle more calls better and keep patients at the center of care.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers useful tools to improve healthcare phone systems beyond traditional IVRs. AI can understand natural speech, make smart decisions using data, and handle routine tasks. It also improves accuracy and the user experience.
One example is AI voice agents that talk naturally with patients and insurance companies. These agents can do tasks like checking drug coverage, pharmacy benefits, prior authorizations, and following up on exceptions.
Infinitus Systems Inc. leads this area. Their AI platform runs over 100 million minutes of healthcare calls yearly. It connects deeply with systems like Salesforce Health Cloud to automate many phone tasks that took a lot of time before and had many mistakes.
The CEO, Ankit Jain, explained how their AI works smoothly with existing healthcare IT systems. This lets organizations automate routine calls without stopping their usual work. The AI agents also update benefit information quickly, cutting down manual entry.
By handling these tasks, healthcare staff can focus more on patients and less on phone work. The AI also stops patients from having to use confusing IVR menus, which speeds care and helps patients feel better about their experience.
Infinitus’ FastTrack™ technology goes past old IVR limits. It lets AI agents call payors directly and skip long menus and hold times. This saves time for healthcare groups and helps more patients get help faster.
FastTrack™ helps staff avoid waiting on calls and complicated menus. It gets benefits or treatment confirmations quicker than old systems.
Healthcare involves many repetitive phone tasks that slow down patient work. Combining AI phone automation with workflow tools can make work faster and more accurate.
AI agents can now check drug coverage, pharmacy benefits, authorization status, and appeals through platforms like Salesforce Health Cloud. This stops staff from juggling many phone calls and typing the same information twice.
Electronic pharmacy benefit checks are already in use, with plans to add medical benefit checks soon. This lets administrators and payors trust AI to do these checks quickly and in bulk.
AI can also help schedule, cancel, or reschedule appointments and send follow-up reminders by SMS, email, or patient portals. It can send refill reminders based on patient or doctor requests to avoid delays and help patients take their medicine on time.
Using two-way texting with AI phone systems gives patients more choices. They can call, text, or leave voicemails. This can lower phone calls by half in some clinics.
AI automations take phone tasks off busy staff. AI agents work all day and night without getting tired. This lowers staff stress. Fewer unanswered calls and better call routing improve patients’ access to help and increase their satisfaction.
Some telehealth groups say patient-to-nurse ratios improved from 11:1 to 15:1 after using AI. This lets them care for more patients with fewer workers.
Patients today want many ways to reach their healthcare providers. Phone-only systems are not enough. Combining AI phone systems with text messages, secure texting, and voicemail transcription makes access easier.
OhMD is an example of a platform that uses these tools. Its Call-to-Text feature turns voicemails into text in the same message thread. Staff can quickly read and act without listening to messages.
In the past year, OhMD users in the U.S. saved millions of staff hours using these methods. Patients can also text “Refill” to start automatic medication refill processes. This cuts phone calls by as much as 50%, freeing clinical staff for more important tasks.
Farmington Family Practice cut call volume in half after adopting OhMD. Ascentist Healthcare lowered surgery wait times by 96% and earned over $1.25 million through similar improvements.
Healthcare communication holds private patient information. It must be accurate and follow laws like HIPAA. AI in phone systems needs to be safe and secure.
Infinitus uses multimodal AI that combines voice recognition with a knowledge database and human checks. Humans review conversations to make sure rules are followed and information is correct. This protects privacy and lowers mistakes.
This approach reduces risks that fully automatic AI systems might have. It also increases speed and accuracy.
Medical leaders and IT managers in the U.S. find many benefits in AI-driven phone automation:
Practice managers wanting to update communication should work with AI companies that connect well to systems like Salesforce, EHRs, and telehealth tools.
Some healthcare AI providers in the U.S. plan to add more features soon. These include automated medical benefit checks through clearinghouses and smarter AI workflows tied to bigger healthcare IT systems. These updates will reduce manual work and speed patient care.
The use of multiple communication channels with AI automation is expected to grow. More healthcare groups will see benefits in efficiency and patient access. Future AI may also better read patient tone and adjust responses in real time for better conversations.
In summary, switching from old IVR phone systems to AI voice agents and workflow automation is moving healthcare communication forward in the United States. These technologies solve problems like missed calls, long waits, and heavy staff workloads by making phone systems smarter, more flexible, and better connected to current healthcare tools.
Medical administrators, IT pros, and practice owners are finding AI phone automation to be an important way to improve patient access, make operations smoother, and keep staff healthy while giving good care. These technologies will keep changing healthcare communication and access across the country.
Infinitus AI agents automate complex administrative phone-based healthcare tasks such as verifying coverage for drugs, pharmacy, and medical benefits, prior authorization status, and follow-up calls. This reduces staff burnout and accelerates care timelines for patients.
They launch directly from Salesforce platforms like Health Cloud and Life Sciences Cloud through MuleSoft connectors and Agentforce, allowing seamless automation of routine administrative phone calls without disrupting existing workflows.
Key use cases include verifying medical and pharmacy benefits, checking prior authorization and appeals status, and following up on product coverage and formulary exceptions with payors.
By automating routine calls and providing near real-time updates on benefits and coverage, these AI agents reduce human workload, improve response times, and minimize patient wait times, thus enhancing satisfaction and operational efficiency.
FastTrackTM initiates calls to payors and enables users to bypass Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems and hold times, saving valuable time and improving access to information compared to conventional IVR phone systems.
Infinitus combines multimodal AI, a proprietary knowledge graph, discrete action spaces, and human-in-the-loop guardrails, which collectively ensure safe, accurate, and compliant handling of sensitive healthcare data during AI-driven conversations.
Infinitus is a trusted solutions partner to 44% of Fortune 50 healthcare companies and works with consulting partners such as Accenture, Slalom, and ZS to serve a broad range of healthcare and life sciences customers.
AI agents offer personalized, intelligent handling of complex tasks without frustrating menus and delays typical of IVRs, resulting in faster verifications, fewer errors, higher scalability, and improved patient and staff engagement.
The partnership enables automated verification of medical and pharmacy benefits, prior authorization checks, and follow-up calls from within Salesforce, supporting bulk and individual transactions with real-time updating of patient records.
Electronic pharmacy benefits verification is currently available, with out-of-the-box medical benefits verification via clearinghouses and expanded Agentforce verification actions expected by October, allowing broader automation and integration at scale.
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