Artera AI Agents are autonomous voice and SMS agents that hold dynamic conversations with patients. This article walks through what a patient experiences when they verify, cancel, or reschedule an existing appointment through an AI agent - whether they reach out by text or call, or reply to an automated reminder your organization sends.

NOTE: Artera AI Agents are configured for your organization with your AI Service Squad. The conversations described here are how these AI agents work in general. Which conversations your patients can have, and which rules the AI agent follows, are set up for your organization. Your AI Service Squad or Customer Success Representative can confirm your configuration.

What This AI Agent Handles

A single AI agent handles all three actions a patient can take on a scheduled appointment:

• Verify: The patient checks the details of an upcoming appointment and indicates whether they plan to attend.

• Cancel: The patient cancels an appointment and the AI agent offers to rebook it in the same conversation.

• Reschedule: The patient moves an appointment to a new time and the AI agent books the new time and releases the original.

The AI agent handles these actions in both directions:

• Inbound: The patient contacts your organization by text or by call about their appointment.

• Outbound: Your organization sends an appointment reminder, and the patient verifies, cancels, or reschedules by replying to it.

Your organization does not maintain three separate AI agents. The same AI agent recognizes which of the three actions the patient wants and completes it. The AI agent reads appointment details from your EHR and writes cancellations and reschedules back to it, so those changes land in your source of truth as soon as the conversation ends. 

NOTE: The one exception is a verification in an inbound conversation. There, the AI agent reads the appointment details back to the patient but does not update the appointment in your EHR or Artera.

How Patients Reach the AI Agent

Patients reach this AI agent by text or by call, on a number your organization owns or one Artera provides. Your organization chooses one of two setups during implementation:

• Through your existing phone number: The AI agent sits inside your phone tree. For example, callers who choose an option, such as appointments, are routed to the correct line.

• Through a dedicated Artera line: Patients call or text a number configured specifically for your AI agent and connect without going through your main phone tree.

Text does not route through a phone tree. Under either setup, texts reach the AI agent directly.

Outbound conversations begin differently. Your organization sends the appointment reminder first, by text or by call, and the conversation begins when the patient replies or answers. For more on access and phone number setup, click here.

Inbound Conversations: Text or Call

1. The patient contacts your organization by text or by call. The AI agent greets the patient and asks how it can help.

2. The AI agent asks what the patient needs before it confirms their identity. Patients whose requests the AI agent does not handle reach the right team quickly, instead of completing verification first and being transferred anyway.

3. The AI agent confirms the patient's identity using the fields your organization configured. These are commonly date of birth, name, and sometimes ZIP code.

4. The AI agent locates the patient's upcoming appointments in your EHR and reads back the details, including provider, date, time, location, and whether the visit is in person or virtual.

5. The patient verifies, cancels, or reschedules. For a cancellation or a reschedule, the AI agent updates your EHR and informs the patient that it's complete before the conversation ends. For a verification, the AI agent reads the appointment details back to the patient but does not change the appointment status in your EHR if the patient confirms the visit.

6. If the patient asks about something outside their appointment, such as billing, prescriptions, or a clinical question, the AI agent hands the patient off to the right team.

NOTE: If your organization supplies the AI agent with a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs), it can also answer questions covered by that content instead of transferring the patient.

Outbound Conversations: Appointment Reminders

In an outbound conversation, your organization reaches the patient first. This is typically with a reminder about an upcoming appointment so they confirm or reschedule without calling in. These reminders reach the patient by text or call and the steps below are the same either way:

1. Artera sends the appointment reminder ahead of the visit, based on the cadence your organization sets.

2. The patient replies to the text or answers the call.

3. The AI agent asks what the patient wants to do with the appointment.

4. The patient verifies the appointment, confirms it, cancels it, or reschedules it. The AI agent completes the action in your EHR and lets the patient know it's done before the conversation ends.

NOTE: For patients who request to reschedule, the AI agent can offer available times and book the new appointment in the same conversation.

The Three Outcomes

Verify and Confirm

Verifying and confirming is the most common request. The AI agent reads back the appointment details so the patient knows when and where the visit is. When the patient confirms in reply to an outbound appointment reminder, the AI agent records the confirmation in your EHR. In an inbound conversation, the read-back is all that happens and no confirmation is recorded in Artera nor your EHR.

Cancel

The AI agent captures a cancellation reason when your organization requires one, cancels the appointment in your EHR, and offers to help the patient reschedule in the same conversation. This ensures the open time can be filled rather than lost.

Reschedule

The AI agent offers only times that satisfy your scheduling rules, books the new appointment, and releases the original, all in one conversation.

How the AI Agent Applies Your Scheduling Rules

The AI agent works from the scheduling rules that already exist in your EHR and Artera, so a patient cannot move a visit to a time your practice would have to change later. These rules include:

• Provider continuity: Whether a follow-up has to be with the same provider the patient saw.

• Visit type: Distinguishing appointment types such as annual physicals, problem visits, Medicare wellness visits, procedures, and telephone visits, so a rescheduled visit lands on the right kind of appointment.

• Clinical routing: Which conditions have to be seen by a physician and which can be seen by an advanced practice provider.

• Location: Whether the patient has to stay at the same location.

The AI agent also handles the provider situations that most often cause mis-scheduling:

• When a preferred provider has no availability, the AI agent offers the closest alternatives rather than ending the conversation.

• When two providers share a last name, the AI agent asks the patient which one they mean before it books.

• When a provider has left the practice, the AI agent recognizes this and tells the patient, so the patient is not waiting on an appointment that is not coming.

What Varies by Configuration

These AI agents are built around each organization's workflows, so the details below differ between organizations. Your AI Service Squad can confirm any of them for your organization:

FAQs

Does the AI agent support languages other than English?

Yes. AI agents can hold these conversations in various languages. Which languages are enabled is part of your configuration. For a full list of supported voice languages, click here.

Why does the AI agent ask what the patient needs before it confirms their identity?

So that patients the AI agent cannot help do not have to go through verification first. A patient with an out-of-scope request reaches the right team faster.

Does a cancelled or rescheduled appointment need manual cleanup in the EHR?

No. The AI agent writes cancellations and reschedules directly to your EHR.

Does an inbound verification update the appointment in your EHR?

No. When a patient texts or calls in to check an appointment, the AI agent reads the details back to them. A confirmation the patient gives in reply to an appointment reminder does write to your EHR.

What happens if the patient's provider has no availability?

The AI agent offers the closest available alternatives. If it still cannot book the visit, it hands the patient to your staff.

Does a patient have to give a reason to cancel?

Only if your organization requires one. Whether a reason is required and which reasons the AI agent accepts is part of your configuration.

Can a patient cancel without rescheduling?

Yes. The AI agent offers to rebook the visit and the patient can decline.

Can the AI agent answer questions that are not about an appointment?

Only if your organization supplies content for those questions. Otherwise, the AI agent hands the patient to the right team.

Can a patient act on an appointment reminder without calling in?

Yes. The patient replies to the reminder text or answers the reminder call and the AI agent verifies, cancels, or reschedules the appointment in that conversation.