Answering service · Canada
The answering service for Canadian clinics
Reception is with a patient and the phone is a new one. EveryRing answers, books or moves the appointment, takes a message when that is the right answer, and never once offers a clinical opinion.
The calls you are missing
A practice phone is busiest exactly when the front desk is least able to reach it: the morning rush, the hour after lunch, and every minute somebody is standing at the counter. The calls that go unanswered are mostly bookings and cancellations, which are the two things that decide whether tomorrow runs well.
An unfilled cancellation is worse than a missed booking. Somebody who could not get through to cancel simply does not arrive, and the slot is gone.
What it does on one of your calls
It answers as your practice, in the name you chose, and says the call is recorded when you have recording on.
- It books, moves and cancels. Into the right room or practitioner's calendar, for the length that appointment type takes, and a cancellation frees the slot immediately.
- It takes the details first, then what the call is about, so nothing is offered before it knows who it is speaking to.
- Anything it is not certain about becomes a callback on your list, with the question attached, rather than an answer it made up.
- Urgent calls reach a person. It rings the number you nominate, says what the call is about, and connects only when somebody accepts.
- A missed call gets a text back within seconds, to a number that has just rung you and no other.
What it will not do
It gives no clinical advice, in any form. Not whether a symptom is serious, not whether somebody should come in, not what a treatment involves, not whether to stop taking something. It is a receptionist, it says so, and when a caller needs a clinical answer it takes the details and gets them to a person.
It is not an emergency service and does not behave like one. A caller describing an emergency is told to hang up and ring emergency services.
It answers only from what you published. Your hours, your services, what you do and do not treat. Anything else is a callback rather than a guess.
On data: everything is stored in Canada, we send no marketing of any kind to anybody, and there is no way to export a patient list, from your account or from ours. Those are properties of the software rather than promises in a policy, and the privacy page sets out exactly what is kept, for how long, and who processes it.
It answers in English. It sends no marketing messages of any kind, to anybody, because there is no feature in the product that could: the only texts that leave are replies, confirmations and reminders for work somebody asked for. And there is no way to export your customer list, ours or anyone's. Neither is a policy we wrote down; both are things the software cannot do.
Against a human answering service
| What is being compared | A human answering service | EveryRing |
|---|---|---|
| Published rate, Canada | Commonly sold by the minute, with a setup fee | $199 to $399 a month, plus a one-time setup fee |
| At 2am | If you bought the after-hours plan | Always, at no different rate |
| What happens to the call | A message you ring back | The job booked, in your calendar, on a van that is free |
| What it knows | A script you wrote for them | The profile you published, and it refuses to guess past it |
| Your number | Often theirs, forwarded | Stays yours |
Rates for human services vary by provider and by how many minutes you buy. Compare the ones you are considering on their own published prices: ours are on the pricing page and do not change by time of day.
Questions clinics ask
Will it ever tell a patient what to do about a symptom?
No. It is built to refuse, to say plainly that it is a receptionist, and to get the caller to somebody who can answer. That refusal is the first rule it has, not an afterthought.
What happens with an emergency call?
It tells the caller to hang up and ring emergency services, and records the call for you to see.
Where does the data live?
In Canada. The privacy page names every processor we use and what each one sees, and it is written against what the code actually does rather than as a general statement of intent.
Can patients cancel or move appointments through it?
Yes, by phone or by text, and the slot is freed at once so somebody else can have it.
What does it cost?
From $199 a month, no long contract. See the pricing page.
Can we hear it before committing?
Yes. We set it up with your appointment types and hours, and you ring it yourselves.
Hear it before you decide
The quickest way to judge this is to listen to it answer as if it were your business. We will set it up with your hours and your services and ring you.