Medical Virtual Receptionist
Patients who can't reach your office don't leave a voicemail — they call the next practice on the list. Televa answers every call in your practice's name, schedules appointments on your calendar, and texts your team a summary of each call.
Why medical offices miss so many calls
Front desks at medical practices face a structural problem: the phone rings most when staff are busiest — checking patients in, verifying insurance, and handling the lobby. Every unanswered ring is a patient who may book elsewhere, and most won't call back or leave a message.
Hiring another receptionist helps but doesn't scale with call spikes, lunch hours, sick days, or after-hours calls. A medical virtual receptionist answers every call simultaneously, around the clock, at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire.
What Televa handles for your practice
- Appointment scheduling
Televa books new and returning patient appointments directly on your connected calendar, following your scheduling rules for visit types and durations.
- New patient intake
Collects name, contact details, reason for visit, and preferred times so your staff has complete information before confirming.
- Rescheduling and cancellations
Patients can move or cancel appointments by phone, and your office gets an immediate text summary of the change.
- Call summaries by SMS
After every call, your office receives a text with who called, what they needed, and what was booked — no voicemail hunting.
- After-hours coverage
Evening, weekend, and holiday calls are answered with the same greeting and booking rules as during office hours.
- Overflow during peak hours
When your front desk is on another line, Televa picks up so no patient ever hits a busy signal or endless hold.
How a patient call flows
- 1The patient calls your existing number
Set up takes minutes with call forwarding — your practice keeps its number and greeting.
- 2Televa answers in your practice's name
The greeting, tone, and questions follow your configuration, so the experience feels like your own front desk.
- 3It qualifies the request
New patient, existing patient, reschedule, or general question — the conversation adapts to the caller's need.
- 4It books or schedules a callback
Appointments land directly on your calendar; anything that needs staff attention is queued with full context.
- 5Your office gets a text summary
A concise SMS with the caller's details and outcome, so staff can follow up without listening to voicemails.
What Televa can and can't do for a medical practice
- Answer every patient call simultaneously, 24/7
- Book, reschedule, and cancel appointments on your calendar
- Collect new-patient contact details and reason for visit
- Send your office an SMS summary after every call
- Cover after-hours, lunch hours, and front-desk overflow
- Provide medical advice or triage symptoms
- Access or discuss patient medical records
- Handle insurance claims or billing disputes
- Replace emergency lines — callers with emergencies are directed to 911
Frequently asked questions from medical practices
Is Televa HIPAA compliant?
Televa collects only the administrative scheduling information you configure — contact details and appointment preferences — and never accesses medical records or discusses symptoms. Your practice should confirm the configuration meets its own compliance policies.
Can it book appointments directly into our schedule?
Yes. Televa books onto a connected Google Calendar following your rules for visit types, durations, and availability.
What happens with after-hours calls?
They're answered exactly like daytime calls — same greeting, same booking rules — and your office receives a text summary of each one.
Does it replace our front desk staff?
No. It covers the calls staff can't get to — overflow, lunch hours, after hours — so your team focuses on patients in the office.
What if a caller has a medical emergency?
Televa does not handle emergencies. Callers describing urgent symptoms are directed to call 911 or their local emergency number.
How fast can we get started?
Setup takes about 10 minutes with call forwarding. There's a 3-week free trial, so you can hear how it answers before paying anything.
Sources
- A majority of inbound calls to small businesses go unanswered.411 Locals study — Frequently cited figure that roughly 62% of calls to small businesses go unanswered; applied here to medical front desks during peak hours.
- Faster response to a new lead significantly increases the odds of qualifying it.Harvard Business Review, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads" — 2011 study on lead response time and contact/qualification rates, applied here to new patients calling a practice.
Related pages
- All industriesHow call handling differs across service businesses.
- What Televa doesFull product overview and call flow.
- After-hours answeringCoverage for evening and weekend patient calls.
- vs. an answering serviceHow AI answering compares to a traditional medical answering service.
- PricingPlans and the 3-week free trial.
Try Televa free for 3 weeks
Televa answers every call in your business name, qualifies the job, books it, and texts you a summary. See plans and start a free trial.