HIPAA-compliant answering is table stakes. Most medical answering services still bill per minute, cannot book into Epic, and use operators trained in general medical terminology, not your protocols. Codeora Vision builds an AI medical office answering service on LangGraph, MCP, and Claude. It is HIPAA-compliant by design, integrates with Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, and eClinicalWorks, and handles after-hours triage. Flat-rate, agent-native, not retrofitted.
Trusted by primary care, pediatric, specialty, and urgent care practices handling PHI every day.
Updated June 7, 2026
Inbound patient call
First-ring pickup, multilingual
Reason & urgency
Protocol-driven triage
Urgent → on-call provider
Warm transfer, logged
Routine → book in EHR
Epic · athenahealth · Cerner
Notes back to chart
Audit trail preserved
HEAR IT LIVE
WHAT IT IS
A medical office answering service answers patient calls when the front desk cannot, after hours, at lunch, and during call surges, while protecting patient health information. A traditional one takes a message and bills per minute. An AI medical office answering service answers every call 24/7, triages by urgency, schedules appointments, and writes back to the practice EHR.
First-mention enrichments: triage (sorting a call by clinical urgency) · PHI (protected health information, the data HIPAA covers) · prescription refill (a refill request routed to the provider) · prior authorization (the insurer approval step the AI can begin) · recall (the outbound reminder that brings a patient back in).
A missed appointment can cost $200+, a new patient is worth $1,500–$5,000 in lifetime value, and incumbents bill $100–$1,200/mo per minute.
Per-minute billing punishes a busy practice for every call. A flat rate, with no after-hours voicemail, turns missed calls into booked, documented visits.
THE PROBLEM
30%+
of inbound calls missed after hours and at peak (industry estimate)
$5,000
lifetime value of a single new patient (top of $1,500–$5,000 range)
24/7
HIPAA-compliant coverage, no hold queue, no voicemail
COMPARISON
AI MEDICAL OFFICE ANSWERING SERVICE (CODEORA VISION)
LIVE / PER-MINUTE MEDICAL ANSWERING SERVICE
WHY PRACTICES SWITCH
A busy month with a legacy service turns into a four-figure bill, and operator fatigue means the worst calls come at the worst times.
A message service hands the front desk a callback list to re-key. The AI writes the appointment and notes into Epic or athenahealth on the call.
Operators "trained in medical terminology" still do not know your triage rules. The AI runs your specialty's protocol, the same way, every time.
HOW IT WORKS
The system answers on the first ring with a natural, multilingual voice, understands the reason for the call, and acts to your protocol. It is built on LangGraph, MCP, and Claude, so it handles real clinical-intake branching and triage, not a phone tree, all inside a HIPAA-compliant boundary.
Picks up 24/7, greets the patient, and gathers the reason for the call while protecting PHI.
Applies your clinical protocol, routes urgent and emergent cases to the on-call provider, schedules the rest.
Checks availability and books into Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, or eClinicalWorks, and logs refill and prior-authorization requests.
Sends confirmation, writes call notes back to the EHR, and flags follow-ups so staff see everything.
The voice layer runs on Vapi and Retell AI with ElevenLabs and Deepgram for low-latency, multilingual speech over Twilio, inside a HIPAA-aware boundary, so patients hear a calm conversation, not a robotic menu.
For practices that want clinical guidelines and documents searchable by the system, we add private RAG for clinical knowledge, grounded in your own sources with citations and kept inside the compliant boundary.
INTEGRATIONS
This is the line every practice manager checks first. Most services mention two or three EHRs. We integrate with the systems below, so the AI books and documents into your live chart, not a message pad.
For deeper automation beyond answering, like syncing referrals, recalls, and documentation across systems, our EHR workflow automation extends the AI across the practice.
BUILT PER SPECIALTY
A generic medical script misroutes calls. The AI runs the triage logic and scheduling rules each specialty needs, so urgent calls go to the right place and routine ones get booked.
Broad symptom intake, refills, and routine scheduling with urgent escalation.
Parent-facing intake, fever and urgent-symptom triage, sick-visit scheduling.
Cosmetic vs medical routing, referral handling, and visit scheduling.
Sensitive, calm intake with clear crisis-escalation routing to your protocol.
High-volume, fast triage and walk-in versus emergency direction.
Pregnancy-related urgency rules and time-sensitive scheduling.
Injury triage, imaging and referral coordination, and post-op calls.
Pet-owner intake, after-hours emergency routing, and appointment booking.
COMPLIANCE & SECURITY
In healthcare, sophisticated buyers verify this section line by line, and the strongest incumbents lead with HITRUST and SOC 2 Type II. We match that rigor. Compliance is scoped and signed before a single patient call is handled.
HIPAA (by design)
Built to HIPAA from the first call, not retrofitted, covering the Privacy and Security Rules.
HITECH
Breach-notification and enforcement requirements built into the architecture.
BAA
A signed Business Associate Agreement before any PHI is handled.
PHI / ePHI architecture
PHI and ePHI stay inside the compliant boundary and never train a public model.
Encryption
Encryption in transit and at rest on every call and record.
Access & audit
Role-based access controls, two-factor authentication, and full audit logs of every interaction.
SOC 2 Type II · HITRUST
Built to SOC 2 Type II controls, with HITRUST alignment underway.
TCPA & medical board
TCPA-compliant outbound, with awareness of state medical board rules.
No patient data trains a public model. PHI is processed inside the compliant boundary, logged for audit, and never left in the open. This is the difference between an AI built for healthcare and a consumer chatbot pointed at a clinic.
RUN THE NUMBERS
Tell us your specialty, your triage protocol, and whether you run Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, or eClinicalWorks. In a 30-minute setup call we will map the HIPAA-compliant answering flow, the on-call escalation path, and the flat rate against what your current service bills per minute.
FLAT-RATE PRICING
One flat monthly rate, a one-time setup, and no per-minute fees. The tier reflects practice size and complexity, not how many calls came in this month or how long each one ran.
24/7 HIPAA-compliant answering, EHR integration, scheduling
$2,500 ONE-TIME SETUP
Get startedAfter-hours triage, refill and prior-auth intake, multi-provider routing
$3,500 ONE-TIME SETUP
Get startedSpecialty and urgent-care protocols, per-provider reporting
FROM $5,000 ONE-TIME SETUP
Talk to usHigher than the dental tier, reflecting clinical complexity and the deeper compliance build. Still a flat line, not a per-minute meter that spikes during flu season.
PROOF
After-hours calls triaged
BEFORE
voicemail until morning
AFTER
triaged 24/7
Appointments booked
BEFORE
next-day callback
AFTER
booked on the call
Answering bill
BEFORE
per-minute, variable
AFTER
flat rate, predictable
A four-physician primary care practice was sending after-hours calls to voicemail and paying a per-minute service that could not book into their EHR. We deployed a HIPAA-compliant-by-design AI medical office answering service integrated with athenahealth, with an after-hours triage protocol routing urgent cases to the on-call provider. Appointments now book on the first call, urgent calls reach a provider overnight, and the answering bill is a flat, predictable line. Single anonymized engagement, not a guarantee.
FAQ
A medical office answering service answers patient calls when your front desk cannot, including after hours, while protecting patient health information. A traditional one takes a message and bills per minute. An AI medical office answering service answers every call 24/7, triages after-hours emergencies to the on-call provider, schedules appointments, and writes back to Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, or eClinicalWorks. We build it HIPAA-compliant by design and flat-rate.
Traditional services bill per minute or per call, often $100 to $1,200 or more a month depending on volume. We charge a flat rate: a $2,500 to $5,000 setup, then $599 to $999 a month by practice size, no per-minute fees. Because a missed appointment can cost $200 or more and a new patient is worth thousands in lifetime value, the flat rate usually pays for itself quickly.
Yes, and it is built HIPAA-compliant by design, not bolted on. We sign a BAA, encrypt PHI and ePHI in transit and at rest, enforce access controls and two-factor authentication, and keep audit logs of every interaction. The system is built to SOC 2 Type II controls with HITRUST alignment underway, and follows HITECH. Protected health information stays inside the compliant boundary and never trains a public model.
Yes, and EHR integration is the difference between a real medical answering service and a message service. We integrate directly with Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, and eClinicalWorks, plus AdvancedMD, DrChrono, NextGen, Practice Fusion, Allscripts, Greenway, CareCloud, Kareo, and ModMed. The AI checks availability, books appointments, logs refills, and records notes into your EHR, instead of leaving a message to enter later.
A live service uses operators who take a message, use a hold queue, bill per minute, and cannot book into Epic or Cerner. An AI medical office answering service answers instantly, handles unlimited calls at once, triages by urgency to your protocol, and writes appointments and notes into your EHR. It follows the same protocol on every call, with no operator fatigue and no after-hours voicemail.
Yes, to your protocol. The AI follows your triage rules, identifies an urgent or emergent situation, gives approved guidance, and routes to the on-call provider by call or text immediately. For a possible emergency, it directs the caller to emergency services per your protocol. Routine requests are scheduled for the next business day. Nothing urgent sits in voicemail overnight.
We build specialty-specific intake and triage for primary care, pediatrics, dermatology, mental and behavioral health, urgent care, OB/GYN, orthopedics, and more, including cardiology, gastroenterology, ENT, ophthalmology, physical therapy, podiatry, and veterinary practices. Each specialty has its own triage logic and scheduling rules, so the intake fits the practice rather than a generic medical script.
A virtual medical receptionist is usually a remote human, billed per hour or per minute and limited to one call at a time. An AI medical office answering service is software: it answers every call at once, never goes to a hold queue, triages to your clinical protocol, and books directly into Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, or eClinicalWorks. It is HIPAA-compliant by design, works 24/7, and costs a flat monthly rate.
DALLAS, TEXAS — RESPONDING IN < 4 HOURS
Tell us your specialty and whether you run Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, or eClinicalWorks. We will scope a HIPAA-compliant-by-design AI medical office answering service with your triage protocol and on-call escalation, live in weeks, at a flat rate. No per-minute meter, no after-hours voicemail.