Voicemail
They: Records a message and waits. Someone still has to listen to it, call back, and hope the patient picks up.
Velaire: Answers the call, books the appointment during the conversation, and confirms the time before the caller hangs up.
What is an AI front office?
It answers the calls your practice can't get to and books the appointment before the caller hangs up. Here's what that means in practice, and what it deliberately isn't.
The short version
Front-desk phone work, running when nobody can pick up
An AI front office covers the administrative half of a front desk: the phone, the booking, and the chasing. It does not touch the clinical half.
It does
- Answers inbound calls after hours, during overflow, or on every call depending on the plan
- Books appointments on the calendar Velaire keeps for the practice, after checking live availability
- Follows up when a call doesn't end in a booking, once texting is live
- Keeps every call, lead, and booking request in one dashboard with a monthly report
It does not
- Give medical advice, triage a symptom, or make any clinical judgement
- Replace the front desk. It covers the calls the team physically can't reach
- Require a new phone number, a port, or any new hardware
- Decide on its own what to do with a call it isn't configured for. Those route to a live line or take a message
Compared with
How it differs from what you already have
Most practices already run one of these. The difference is where the call ends up.
An answering service
They: A person takes a message on your behalf. Your team still does the booking, usually the next morning.
Velaire: The appointment is booked on the calendar Velaire keeps for the practice, without a second round of phone tag.
A phone tree
They: Routes by keypad. It cannot answer a question a caller asks in their own words, and long menus are where people hang up.
Velaire: A natural conversation. The caller says what they need and gets an answer, not a menu.
Hiring another receptionist
They: Covers the hours that person works. Evenings, weekends, and the overflow during a busy stretch stay uncovered.
Velaire: Covers exactly the calls your team can't get to, without changing your headcount or your existing number.
Working out whether the trade makes sense for your own call volume? Run your own numbers
From first conversation to first call
A considered setup. A simpler start.
Most practices are ready within 48 hours of signing. Your configuration and approval come first.
Share how you work
Your hours, service menu, common questions, and routing rules.
01/03
Listen, review, approve
We configure your agent. You hear it and approve before it goes live.
02/03
Go live on your number
Your existing line, with calls and requests ready for your team.
03/03
Choosing one
What to actually check before you sign
The category is crowded and most vendors sound identical on a homepage.
We wrote up the questions worth asking, including the ones that separate a real deployment from a demo: what happens on a call it cannot handle, whether it books or just takes a message, and which vendors in the chain have signed a BAA.
The questions to ask any vendor in this category, with our own answer to each one beside them. No email required.
FAQs
Common questions.
An AI front office is software that handles the front-desk phone work a practice can't get to: answering inbound calls, booking appointments on the calendar Velaire keeps for the practice, and following up when a call doesn't end in a booking, once texting is live. It covers administrative work only, not clinical decisions.
They usually describe the same thing. "AI receptionist" emphasises answering the phone; "AI front office" covers the work that follows the call as well, including booking capture, follow-up, and reporting.
No. It covers the calls a team physically can't answer, such as after-hours calls and overflow during a busy stretch. The people who know your patients stay where they are.
That depends entirely on the vendor's infrastructure, not on the category. The question to ask any vendor is whether they hold signed Business Associate Agreements with every vendor that touches patient data, including voice, SMS, and hosting.
No. An AI front office is a natural conversation rather than a keypad menu. The caller says what they need in their own words.
It varies by vendor. Velaire configures the agent to a practice's own service menu and booking process, and most practices are live within 48 hours of signing.
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