How an AI agent takes a new physical therapy patient from referral to evaluation

A referral came over on Friday, and the patient it belongs to has not called. A caller wants to know how many visits her plan covers. She is asking while the desk is checking a patient in and a therapist is waiting on a chart. Another caller wanted an evaluation on Tuesday, got voicemail, and did not leave a message. The desk falls behind because the work interrupts itself, not because your team is slow.

A new physical therapy patient is not one visit. They are a course of visits, and when the first one never gets booked, the course never starts.

Hello Patient builds AI agents for patient conversations, and one of the jobs they do at a physical therapy clinic is taking a new patient's first call. The agent answers the phone or the text and asks the questions your front desk asks. It writes down what the patient says about a referral and a plan, and it books the evaluation on your schedule. It works the other direction too, calling and texting the referred patients on a list your team gives it. The general version of this is on our page about how an AI agent handles new patient intake, and this page is the physical therapy version.

The rest of this page is what the agent does on that first call, where it stops, and what stays with your staff.

The referral a new physical therapy patient calls about, and what your team still has to chase

The agent asks whether the patient has a referral and who wrote it, and it writes down what the patient says. It does not read the referral, request it, or judge whether it is valid.

A new physical therapy patient usually arrives with something attached to them. A physician wrote a referral or a prescription. A surgeon sent a post-op protocol. In some states a patient can start physical therapy with nothing at all. On the call the agent finds out which of those is true, in the patient's own words, and puts it on the appointment so your team is not guessing later.

Take a patient calling after a rotator cuff repair. He says his surgeon's office sent something over, and he gives the surgeon's name. The agent writes the name down and books the evaluation. Getting the protocol itself stays with your staff, and now they know whose office to call.

Referrals also come in without the patient ever calling. On a list your clinic provides, the agent can call or text those patients to get them booked. It does not pull the list out of your system. Your team hands it over. Ortho1 Medical Group, an orthopedic group with three locations in the San Diego area, put an outbound agent on its referral list. It booked 190 referral visits in the campaign's first two months, with no new front-desk hires. That is orthopedics, not physical therapy, and Ortho1's whole story is here.

What the agent asks a new physical therapy patient before the evaluation

It asks the things that start a patient record, plus the few things a physical therapy clinic needs before an evaluation.

• Name, date of birth, and how to reach them.
• What is going on and how it started.
• Whether there is a referral, and who wrote it.
• What plan they have.
• Which clinic and which therapist they want, and when they can come in.

The agent writes down what the patient says and moves to the next question. It makes no clinical decisions of any kind. The agent never gives medical advice.

Take a runner with knee pain and no referral. Nothing was sent over, because nobody sent her anywhere. She called because a friend comes to your clinic. The agent asks the same questions, writes down that there is no referral, and books her the same way it books everyone else. Whether she can be seen without one is your clinic's rule and your state's law. The agent books inside the rules your clinic set up.

"How many visits does my plan cover?" and where the agent stops

The agent tells the caller whether your clinic takes the plan. Then it stops.

That is a shorter answer than the question she asked, and it is the honest one. The agent does not check whether a policy is active. It does not look up benefits. It does not count visits against a limit, does not confirm an authorization, and never tells a patient what a visit will cost. It writes down the plan and whatever else the patient said about it, and leaves that on the appointment for your team.

At a physical therapy clinic that gap matters, because the visit count is the question patients ask. A caller whose plan changed on January 1 wants to know how many visits she has this year and whether she needs an authorization first. The agent tells her your clinic takes the plan, books the evaluation, and puts her own words about the change on the appointment. Your team runs the benefit check the way it does now, before she comes in, instead of sorting it out at the counter.

Some callers are not an insurance question at all. Workers' comp, an auto injury, and a self-pay caller are the calls a script gets wrong. The agent states what it cannot resolve and hands the call to a person with the whole conversation attached, so your staff pick the thread up instead of asking the patient to start over.

Booking the evaluation, and why the rest of the plan of care is not booked on that call

The agent books the evaluation and nothing after it.

The first visit is an evaluation. The agent books it into the visit type, the therapist, the location, and the booking window your clinic set up. The plan of care, which might be two or three visits a week for six weeks, gets set with the therapist after the evaluation. The agent does not decide how many visits a patient needs.

One agent covers every clinic's line in the group at the same time, and each clinic keeps its own therapists, visit types, hours, and slot rules. The patient calling your busiest clinic and the patient calling your quietest one get the same call.

Hear how it sounds here or request a free demo agent for your clinic today by booking a call.

The intake packet a new physical therapy patient never finishes

It is not that the patient changed her mind. The packet cannot answer a question back.

She gets a few fields in and hits something she cannot answer from where she is standing. She does not know her group number. She is not sure what to call the surgery. All it takes is a missing detail or a quick distraction, and the tab gets closed. Nothing about her reaches your schedule.

A conversation handles that same stall while she is still there. The agent takes a new patient by phone or by text, and web chat on your website can take a new patient through booking too. She says she is not sure about her plan, the agent writes that down, and the evaluation still gets booked. The forms-and-software side of this has its own page, on how an AI intake agent compares with intake software.

Your packet stays where it is. It stops being the only way in.

Where the new physical therapy patient's record lands after the call

It depends on the system, and you want both answers before you sit through a demo.

Where your clinic runs a system the agent connects to, it creates the new patient record during the call. The appointment lands on the schedule with the record attached. Nobody re-types the call afterward. Hello Patient connects to the EHR, practice management, and CRM systems healthcare already runs on.

Otherwise the call still gets taken the same way. The agent collects the same details, hands them to the desk as a request to enter, and tells the patient your clinic will confirm. Your team types it in. That is still less work than taking the call from a blank screen while somebody waits at the counter.

The agent creates the new patient record. It does not open an existing patient's chart and change what is in it.

Hello Patient is HIPAA-compliant, SOC 2 Type 2 certified, and signs a Business Associate Agreement with every client. A new patient call is one of the calls an agent takes on your line. The everyday ones are covered on our page about what an AI medical receptionist handles.

What to ask a vendor about new patient intake at a physical therapy clinic

Three questions, and they are the same three whichever vendor you are sitting with.

First, ask whether the agent checks insurance. Don't accept "it handles insurance." Ask for a yes or a no, then ask the physical therapy version of it. Does it count visits against a plan limit, and does it confirm an authorization? If the answer is yes, ask which payer connection it runs through, and who is responsible when the answer is wrong.

Second, ask where the information the agent collects ends up. Does a record get created in the system your group runs, or does the information sit somewhere your front desk has to go find it? Ask to watch it land during the demo, on your own system.

Third, ask what the agent does with a workers' comp caller, an auto injury caller, and a self-pay caller. You want an agent that plainly states what it can't resolve, then hands off the call to a team member with the full conversation attached.

Then go back to the referral that came over on Friday. Somebody has to call that patient, ask him who his surgeon is, and get him on the schedule before the week turns over. An agent takes that call, and the evaluation is where the course of visits starts.

Find out whether Hello Patient fits your clinic. Book a call and we'll show you, on the system you run today, what a new patient's first call would look like. Make sure to ask for a free demo agent to see how it will sound to your patients.

Frequently asked questions

Does an AI intake agent check whether a physical therapy patient's insurance authorizes visits?

No. Hello Patient's agent tells the caller whether your clinic takes the plan, and that is where it ends. It does not confirm an authorization, does not count visits against a plan limit, does not check whether a policy is active, does not look up benefits, and never tells a patient what a visit will cost. It writes down the plan and whatever else the patient said about it, and leaves that on the appointment. Your team runs the authorization and the benefit check the way it does now, before the patient comes in for the evaluation.

Can an AI agent book a physical therapy evaluation for a patient who has a referral from a doctor?

Yes. On the call, Hello Patient's agent asks whether the patient has a referral and who wrote it, writes down the answer, and books the evaluation into the visit type, therapist, location, and booking window your clinic set up. It does not read the referral, request it from the physician's office, or judge whether it is valid. Getting the document itself stays with your staff, and they get the writer's name off the call instead of hunting for it. A patient with no referral gets booked the same way, inside the rules your clinic set for those patients.

What does an AI intake agent collect from a new physical therapy patient over the phone?

The things that start a patient record, plus what a physical therapy clinic needs before an evaluation. Hello Patient's agent asks for name, date of birth, and contact information, what is going on, whether there is a referral and who wrote it, what plan the patient has, and which clinic and therapist they want and when. It writes down what the patient says. It makes no clinical decisions and never gives medical advice. The agent asks the same questions on outbound calls and texts to referred patients on a list your team provides, so a patient can be set up before the evaluation.

Does an AI intake agent work with the practice management system a physical therapy clinic runs?

Sometimes, and the answer changes what happens after the call. Where your clinic runs a system Hello Patient connects to, the agent creates the new patient record during the call and the appointment lands on the schedule with the record attached. Hello Patient connects to the EHR, practice management, and CRM systems healthcare already runs on. Otherwise the agent collects the same details, hands them to the desk as a request to enter, and tells the patient your clinic will confirm. Ask to watch it land on your own system during the demo.

What happens when a workers' comp or auto injury patient calls a physical therapy clinic?

The call goes to a person. Workers' comp, an auto injury, and a self-pay caller are the calls a script gets wrong, so Hello Patient's agent states plainly what it cannot resolve and hands the call to your staff with the whole conversation attached. The patient does not start over, and your team picks the thread up where the agent left it. The agent does not guess at who is paying, does not confirm an authorization, and never tells the patient what a visit will cost. Whatever it collected before the handoff stays on the appointment, including what the patient said about the injury.

Why don't new physical therapy patients finish the intake packet before the evaluation?

Because a packet cannot answer a question back. A patient gets a few fields in, hits something she cannot answer from where she is standing, and all it takes is a missing detail or a quick distraction, and the tab gets closed. Nothing about her reaches your schedule. Hello Patient's agent handles that same stall in a conversation, by phone or by text, and web chat on your website can take a new patient through booking too. She says she is not sure about her plan, the agent writes that down, and the evaluation still gets booked.

Can an AI intake agent take new patient calls for a multi-clinic physical therapy group?

Yes. One Hello Patient agent covers every clinic's line in the group at the same time, so a call to the busiest clinic and a call to the quietest one get answered the same way. Each clinic keeps its own therapists, visit types, hours, and slot rules, and the agent books inside them. It works outbound too, calling and texting referred patients on a list your team provides, clinic by clinic. Nothing depends on which staff member happens to be free at which site.