Conversations That Feel Human
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The Problem
Why Medical Practices Are Moving to an AI Answering Service
Patients call about appointments, prescriptions, billing and insurance long after your front desk closes, and a missed call often just becomes a call to a different practice. A traditional medical answering service can pick up, but it charges per call, locks you into a contract for HIPAA coverage, and relies on operators reading from a script with no access to your schedule or records. Retell operates under a signed BAA, checks your schedule and knowledge base to give real answers, and gets urgent messages to your on-call physician right away.
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Comparison
Retell VS. A Traditional Medical Answering Service
Hours
What You Pay For
Wait Time
Busy Periods
Consistency
Languages
Handing Off To You
Setup
Your Tools
Traditional Answering Service
Business hours, with after-hours coverage billed as a separate add-on
Per minute and per call, plus a monthly contract and hold time
Callers hold while an operator becomes free
Limited by how many operators are on shift; calls queue or drop
Depends on which operator answers and how well they know your practice
Usually English, other languages billed extra or unavailable
Takes a message and pages the on-call physician with limited detail
Sign a contract, write call scripts, train operators on your practice
Messages relayed by phone, page or fax
Every call answered 24/7, including nights, weekends and holidays
Usage-based from $0.07/min, $10 in free credits to start
Answered on the first ring, no queue
20 concurrent calls included, higher on Enterprise
The same accurate answer on every call
55+ languages handled the same way
Warm transfer or alert with the full transcript and caller context attached
Start from a template, sync your knowledge base, go live
Connects to your scheduling and practice systems over secure webhooks and acts during the call
Cost per minute
$0.07-$0.31/min
LLM: gpt-5
$0.040/min
TTS: platform
$0.015/min
Voice Engine
$0.055/min
Background speech removal
$0.005/min
Safety Guardrails
$0.005/min
Buyer’s Guide
How to Choose a Medical Answering Service
$0.07-$0.31 Per Minute
You pay for real call time, nothing else.
$10 in Free Credits
Try it before you pay anything.
No Monthly Retainers
Nothing extra for nights, weekends or busy periods.
Lower Bills Overall
Routine calls clear on their own, so spend drops.
Capabilities
What Our Agent Does on a Call
Handles Patient Calls the Right Way:
It answers scheduling, prescription refill and billing questions using your practice's own information, with no phone tree to navigate.
It follows the escalation rules you set, so urgent messages reach your on-call physician instead of sitting in a queue.
When a patient needs a person, the agent warm-transfers them with the full conversation and caller details attached.
Answers from Your Practice's Knowledge Base:
It stays in sync with your knowledge base, so patients hear current answers about hours, providers and insurance accepted.
It can look up a patient's appointment or account mid-call and tailor what it says.
It connects to your scheduling and billing tools over secure webhooks while the call is live, and runs under a signed BAA with SOC 2 Type II controls.
Setup
Live in Four Steps
Step 1
Build
Set the agent up in a no-code dashboard or with the API, and point it at your scheduling system and practice FAQs.
Step 2
Test
Run it against the calls your practice actually gets and confirm it answers correctly and escalates cleanly.
Step 3
Deploy
Connect your practice line over SIP trunking or take a new number, then go live on voice, SMS and chat.
Step 4
Monitor
Track resolution and escalation rates and patient sentiment from the dashboard, and refine over time.
Value
Why Businesses Choose Retell
A Clean Handoff to Your Team
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Reporting You Can Act On
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Built for Sensitive Data
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- Hubspot
- Twilio
- Vonage
- Go High Level
- n8n
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- Hubspot
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- Go High Level
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- Make
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Overview
Built to scale with you
From quick-start simplicity to enterprise-grade security, compliance, and support. Retell meets you wherever you are.
Put Your Business Answering Service to Work Today
Start from a template, sync your knowledge base, and connect your line or take a new number. Try it on your real calls, then go live on voice, SMS and chat.
FAQ
Common Questions
Is Retell's medical answering service HIPAA compliant?
Yes. Retell is HIPAA compliant and offers a self-service Business Associate Agreement (BAA), and it holds SOC 2 Type II certification for how patient data is handled and stored.
Can the agent take and relay messages to my on-call physician?
Yes. The agent captures the patient's message and reason for calling, then follows the escalation rules you set to alert or warm-transfer your on-call physician with the full context attached.
Does Retell diagnose or triage patients over the phone?
No. Retell answers calls, schedules appointments and relays messages, but it does not perform clinical triage or give medical advice. Any call that needs a clinical judgment is routed to your on-call staff based on the rules you configure.
Can patients schedule or reschedule appointments through the agent?
Yes. Connected to your scheduling system, the agent can book, confirm and reschedule appointments during the call, and hand off to staff if a request falls outside what you've configured.
What happens with billing and insurance questions?
The agent answers common billing and insurance questions from your practice's knowledge base, such as accepted plans and payment policies, and transfers the caller to your billing staff for anything account-specific.
What languages can the agent handle?
Retell handles more than 55 languages with the same quality, so non-English-speaking patients get the same level of service as everyone else.
How much does it cost and how long does setup take?
Pricing is usage-based starting at $0.07 per minute, with $10 in free credits to start, so there's no flat monthly contract. Most practices start from a template, sync their knowledge base and scheduling system, and go live within days.
