The problem
You can't answer the phone and treat a patient at the same time. Hands-on treatment is forty minutes to an hour of undivided attention, and the sessions run back to back all day. The phone rings throughout, into an empty room.
Three things follow from that:
- The callers are motivated but not patient. Someone with a GP referral and lower back pain is ready to book today, from a list of local clinics, with no loyalty to any of them.
- You lose a course, not an appointment. A new patient assessment is usually the start of several weeks of treatment.
- They ring when you have least cover. People needing physio work full-time, so they call at lunchtime or after 5pm. Lunchtime is thinnest; after 5pm there's nobody there at all.
The clinic that answers gets the assessment. That is the whole of it.
The calls you miss
Mid-session new patient enquiry. A caller has been referred by their GP and is ready to book. You are forty minutes into an assessment. They ring off and try the clinic down the road.
The lunchtime rush. Between 12:00 and 14:00, post-surgery patients and office workers ring to book their first appointment. Your lunch break is the only time they have. It is often the only time you are not with a patient. Those calls stack up or go unanswered.
Evening callback that never happens. You write "call back Dave re: shoulder" on a Post-it at 17:30. By 19:00 you have forgotten, Dave has moved on, and a new patient assessment fee has walked out the door.
The cancellation slot. A patient cancels at short notice. You ring around to fill the slot and spend twenty minutes on hold. Meanwhile someone else is trying to book that exact time and getting no answer.
How Telphi answers for a physiotherapist
A realistic example of a call Telphi handles while you are treating a patient.
Caller: "Hi, I'd like to book a physio appointment. I've got lower back pain."
Telphi: "Of course. To make sure we book you with the right amount of time, a couple of quick questions. Is this a new injury or something you have had treated before?"
Caller: "It's been going on for about three weeks. New to this clinic though."
Telphi: "And is the pain mainly in your lower back, or does it radiate into your leg at all?"
Caller: "Mainly the back, a bit into my left hip."
Telphi: "Understood. Do you have a preference for morning or afternoon appointments?"
Caller: "Mornings are better for me."
Telphi: "I'll send you a booking link now. You can choose a morning slot and book directly into the calendar. Is the best number to send that to the one you are calling from?"
You get a summary: new patient, lower back pain with left hip referral, three weeks duration, prefers mornings, booking link sent. The appointment lands while you are still with your 10am patient.
What you get after every call
- A written summary with the caller's name, contact number, reason for enquiry, and any details they shared
- A full call transcript you can read in your own time
- A recording of the conversation
- Urgent call transfer mid-conversation if someone needs to reach you immediately – configure the criteria yourself
- Spam and nuisance calls filtered before they reach your log
Booking while you are with a patient
For a physiotherapy practice, the booking is the whole point. Telphi texts the caller a booking link and they book directly into your calendar. No phone tag. No "I'll get someone to call you back." The slot is filled before your current session ends.
This matters most for new patients. A first assessment is typically 45–60 minutes of billable time. Missing that enquiry call does not cost you a message. It costs you the assessment fee and, if the patient stays, a course of treatment.
