Patient being treated in a physio clinic

Custom AI receptionists for chiro, physio and massage clinics

Start free pilotFree pilot. About 14 days to a working line, no call limit.

Why a chiro, physio or massage clinic needs a custom AI receptionist

Most callers want to know if you take their insurance, and most of them are vague about what kind of appointment they need. AnswerAI answers the payer question and books the right appointment length the first time.

Under Alberta's Diagnostic and Treatment Protocols Regulation, physiotherapists and chiropractors are primary care practitioners (no physician referral needed) and someone injured in a collision should be assessed within 10 days. Section B benefits then cover protocol care for 90 days, billed directly to the auto insurer regardless of who was at fault. Most people have no idea. They phone a clinic asking whether their insurance is accepted, which is the wrong question, and a voicemail costs them the answer.

What do people actually ask when they call a clinic?

Payer questions, mostly, and appointment requests that are quietly ambiguous about what kind of appointment they need. Both have to be resolved before anything goes in the schedule.

  • “I got rear-ended last week. Does that get covered?”

    The ten-day call. The honest answer is more generous than the caller expects (direct billing to the auto insurer regardless of fault) and it is time-limited.

  • “It happened at work. Do I need a WCB claim number first?”

    Different payer, different paperwork, different appointment. Routing this wrong means billing the wrong party.

  • “I just need a quick adjustment.”

    From someone who has never been in. That is an initial assessment, and booking it as a follow-up costs the practitioner their afternoon.

  • “Same as last time.”

    Last time was fourteen months ago, which also makes this an initial. A line that does not check the history books it as a thirty-minute follow-up.

Won't it book the wrong kind of appointment?

That is the right thing to worry about, and it is the reason this line asks about payer and injury cause before it offers a time. Allied health schedules are appointment-type sensitive in a way most industries are not.

The fear here is operational rather than legal, which makes this vertical unlike most on this site. Nobody is worried the phone will say something dangerous. They are worried a thirty-minute follow-up will land in a slot that needed a sixty-minute initial assessment, with different intake, different paperwork and a different payer behind it, and that one mis-typed booking will derail an entire day of hands-on treatment.

So the build starts with classification, not availability. New or returning. Which payer: extended health, WCB, a motor vehicle claim, or self-pay. And the question that does the most work in this vertical: was this from a car accident or something at work. That single answer routes the appointment length, the paperwork, the party being billed, and a ten-day clock the caller usually does not know is running.

The direct billing question is worth building properly too. Clinics commonly bill Alberta Blue Cross, Sun Life, Canada Life, Manulife, WCB and MVA claims directly, and callers ask about it constantly. A line that can answer accurately for your clinic, rather than saying somebody will call back, resolves the actual objection to booking.

None of this replaces online booking. Jane already handles the people who will book themselves. The phone is the segment that will not, or that has a question first, and in this vertical the question is usually about money.

What happened at an appointment-based clinic we run

One month, one location, every call answered. Stated plainly: this is not a physiotherapy clinic, and we are not going to imply it is.

Adjacent business: Sucré Body Sugaring & Medical, Calgary. Appointment-based clinic work, not allied health.

  • 340Calls in one month
  • 100%Answer rate
  • 187Booking intents captured
  • 4Locations on an AnswerAI line

Those figures cover one location over one month, and Sucré is body sugaring and medical aesthetics rather than chiro, physio or massage. The work is genuinely comparable (appointment-type sensitivity, practitioner-specific booking, treatment rooms that keep staff off the phone) but it is an adjacent business we run, not a physio clinic, and calling it anything else would be the kind of claim this site exists not to make. The sourced Alberta collision rules above are this vertical's own evidence, and they are stronger.

In Alberta someone injured in a collision has ten days to get assessed and ninety days of care their auto insurer pays for regardless of fault, and most of them find that out by phoning a clinic, which is why an unanswered clinic phone costs the caller more than it costs the clinic.

Nick Lovett, Founder, AnswerAI

The quickest way to know is to call it as a collision patient who has never been in, and see which appointment it books you into.

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Questions clinic owners ask

Yes, and it is built to check rather than assume. New patients, and returning patients whose last visit was long enough ago to count as new, get routed to the longer appointment with the right intake attached.

It can answer accurately for your clinic: which insurers you bill directly, what a patient pays up front, and what they submit themselves. Those are the questions that actually stop people booking, and a callback three hours later does not resolve them.

It asks whether the injury came from a collision or from work before it offers a time, because that answer changes the payer, the paperwork and the appointment type. It can also tell an MVA caller that assessment is expected within 10 days of the collision and that Section B covers 90 days of protocol care regardless of fault, which is usually the most useful thing they hear that week.

Yes, including preferences people are reluctant to state twice, like a female massage therapist or the physiotherapist they saw last time. In this industry patients book a person, not a service.

Jane is the default in Canadian allied health and it is Canadian-built. What we can write back depends on what your clinic wants automated, and we will be specific about what is a native booking write versus a structured request your front desk confirms. We would rather under-promise that than discover it in week three.

Let's build one for your clinic and find out.

We build a working line on your appointment types, your practitioners, your direct billing rules and your MVA intake, and you call it yourself. About 14 days. No call limit during the pilot.

Start free pilot