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AI Prescreening Calls for Clinical Trial Recruitment
5.0
ON G2
Prescreening for the sign-ups and referrals your coordinators cannot call fast enough. The agent calls people who asked about a study, or answers when they call you, asks your protocol's prescreening questions one at a time, answers study logistics from approved wording, and passes likely candidates to your study team. It records answers; your team decides eligibility. Run a pilot on one study before you sign a contract.
Trusted by over 4,000 businesses powering 100+ million calls per month.
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How It Works
Set up AI prescreening calls in four steps, from your protocol questions to live calls for one study.
Build the study's question set
Write the approved opening, the prescreening questions in protocol order, the answers the agent may give about the study, and the rules for handing off to study staff, as one agent version per study.
Test with your study team
Run simulated calls with people unsure of their diagnosis, people who list many medications, callers who ask medical questions, and people who want to stop, and grade every run with your study team.
Connect numbers and lists
Answer your study line or call sign-ups from a Retell number or your own number imported over a SIP trunk, and run lists inside the calling hours your team approves.
Go live and review every call
Every call is transcribed and analyzed, so you can track people reached, prescreens completed, handoffs to coordinators, and calls that ended early.
Use Cases
Every study sign-up called and prescreened the same careful way
Calls to people who asked about a study
Need everyone who raised a hand for a study called before their interest fades. When someone signs up on your site or is referred, the agent calls, confirms they asked about the study, introduces it in the wording your study team approved, and asks whether now is a good time for a few questions. Earlier sign-ups run through batch calling inside the hours you choose.
Protocol questions asked one at a time
Need prescreening questions asked the same careful way on every call. The agent asks one question per turn in the order your protocol team sets, such as the diagnosis, current medications and how long the person has taken them, recent hospital stays, height and weight where the protocol has a limit, and the exclusions you list. It records what the person says and does not explain the decision logic, so answers are not shaped to fit. Each study gets its own agent or published version, because the questions change per study.
Inbound intake for people who call about a study
Need the person who calls from an ad answered with a full intake, not a voicemail. The agent runs a longer, structured interview covering the medical history and medications your study team asks for, at a calm pace that gives people room to answer honestly. It does not tell the caller whether they qualify. The answers go to your study team, who match them against open studies.
Study logistics answered from approved wording
Need the same questions answered the same way every time. How long the study runs, how many visits there are and how long they take, whether there is a placebo, how far the site is, and whether time or travel is compensated: the agent answers only from the approved wording you give it. Anything else, and every medical question, goes to study staff.
A warm handoff or the next step online
Need people who look like a match moved forward while they are still on the phone. Depending on your script, the agent warm transfers the call to a coordinator with a private summary, books a call with study staff on Cal.com or Calendly, or tells the person how to continue the application on your site. You decide what the caller hears at the end of the call.
Medical records requests to treating physicians
Need records from a participant's physician without staff on hold all afternoon. Once the participant has signed an authorization, the agent calls the physician's office, says who it is calling for and what is needed, confirms how the records will be sent, such as fax, secure email, or a portal, and logs the request status back to your system. Offices that want to speak with a person are transferred to your team.
Built for Contact Centers, Not Demos
Retell is the AI Voice Platform Enterprise Contact Centers Run On
Retell lets you build, test and deploy AI phone agents that handle real call volume, so your team spends its time on the conversations that need a person.
Feature
Why research teams choose Retell AI for clinical trial prescreening
One agent version per study
Every protocol has its own questions, order, and exclusions. A conversation flow keeps the question set in the order your study team approved. Published agent versions are read-only, so every call runs a fixed, approved script, and a protocol change becomes a new version rather than an untracked edit.
Approved answers and handoff rules you control
The agent answers study logistics only from the wording you approve and never gives medical advice. You decide which answers end in a handoff to study staff and what the caller is told at the end, and you change those rules yourself, without a vendor ticket.
Hand off to a coordinator with the answers
People who look like a match should not repeat themselves. A warm transfer briefs the coordinator privately on the answers so far before connecting the caller, and the full transcript and recording are available after the call.
Sign-up spikes called the same day
A campaign or a news story can bring a week of sign-ups in a day, and interest fades fast. Calls run in parallel, with 20 concurrent calls included on pay-as-you-go and more on demand, and batch calls run inside the hours you choose while reserved concurrency keeps your study line answered.
Contact rate, completed prescreens, and handoffs
Sponsors and sites need to see where sign-ups drop out. Post-call extraction records fields you define on every call, such as reached, prescreen completed, handed off, and stopped early, and the analytics dashboard charts them by agent version and by hour. Alerts notify you when the completion rate drops.
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- Genesys
- Five9
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- Cal.com
Pricing
Cut Costs by 90% with AI phone Agents
Pay as you go
$0 to start.
$0.07–$0.31 per minute – Pay only for what you use.
60 mins of free access.
20 concurrent calls.
10 Free Knowledge Bases.
Enterprise Plan
For companies with large volumes, data or deployment requirements, or support needs.
White glove service for your use case.
Premium support with dedicated solution engineer teams.
Custom pricing and concurrent calls based on your needs
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
Does the agent decide whether someone is eligible?
No. It asks your prescreening questions and records the answers. Your study team, or the qualified staff your protocol names, decides eligibility, and informed consent happens later with site staff. You choose what the caller hears at the end of the call, such as a coordinator follow-up or the next step on your site.
Can we call people a partner or health plan matched to a study?
Check first whether those people agreed to be contacted by you. Consent given to a plan or partner may not cover calls from you or your vendor, so confirm the basis with your counsel before any list is called. Once that is settled, the agent can explain the study, answer logistics, gauge interest, and warm transfer interested people to your team.
What approvals do we need before calls go out?
Usually several. Recruitment scripts often need IRB review, contacting people with health information needs an authorization or a waiver, and outbound calls fall under calling and consent rules where the person lives. Clinical trial patient recruitment covers the list in more detail. This is not legal or regulatory advice.
Is the agent HIPAA compliant?
Retell supports HIPAA workloads, and a signed business associate agreement is required before any protected health information is sent through the platform. The BAA is self-signed, with no fee. After signing, you set retention per agent from one day to two years, choose whether stored transcripts keep PII, and restrict access to recordings with signed URLs.
How much do AI prescreening calls cost on Retell?
Pay-as-you-go voice agents cost $0.07 to $0.31 per minute, depending on the language model, voice, and telephony you choose, with $10 in free credits to start and no contract. Twenty concurrent calls are included, and calls above your limit can run in burst mode at an extra $0.10 per minute. Enterprise plans have custom pricing. See pricing for your mix.
Can the agent call physicians' offices for medical records?
Yes. After a participant signs an authorization, the agent calls the treating physician's office, explains the request, confirms how records will be sent, and logs the status to your CRM or system through a native integration, custom function, or webhook. Offices that want a person are transferred to your team.
