The phones started ringing before the day even began. At TSAOG Orthopaedics & Spine, eight busy locations meant hundreds of patients calling for help with injuries, follow-ups, and appointment changes. Every call mattered, but when staffing challenges occurred, it became clear the scheduling team couldn’t keep up.
For Gabrielle Rebolloso, Director of Marketing & Communications, the challenge was impossible to ignore. The organization’s overflow call center, usually a safety net, was also short-staffed. Patients were waiting longer, and schedulers were pulled in every direction.
“That kind of kick-started our journey into needing to find a new technology such as AI to implement within our scheduling lines to help overcome that staffing shortage,” recalled Rebolloso.
Rebolloso and her team decided to look deeper. They reviewed months of call data and found something surprising. Of the 30,000 calls coming in every month, nearly one-third were routine changes such as verifications, cancellations, and rescheduling appointments. These weren’t new requests or emergencies, just repetitive tasks that were taking time away from the calls that required more attention.
Finding Relief: Automating the Routine to Restore Access
Once TSAOG understood what was driving the problem, the path forward became clearer. The team decided to focus on the 30% of calls that were tying up staff with simple tasks. If they could automate those interactions, schedulers would finally have the time to focus on complex cases like surgical coordination and highly personalized patient support. “Since we had everything in place with centralized scheduling and self-scheduling, it was a seamless process,” Rebolloso shared. “The functions were already there, and we could turn it on as soon as we said yes.”
Behind the scenes, those interactions were being autonomously handled by Dash Voice AI, an agentic AI system designed to handle routine scheduling tasks. It worked continuously, day and night, allowing patients to manage their appointments even after regular office hours. By automating appointment verifications, cancellations, and reschedules through a system connected directly to their EHR, TSAOG could let routine changes happen autonomously while staff handled calls that required personal attention.
The implementation was deliberate. Teams from operations, IT, marketing, and patient experience worked together to define what types of calls could safely move to automation and how updates would flow back into their system in real time. Once in place, the change was immediate. The phones stayed just as busy, but the staff finally had space to work without feeling overwhelmed.
What Changed When Automation Took Over the Routine
The difference was noticeable almost right away. Once the automated workflows began managing routine appointment changes, schedulers had space to breathe. The calls reaching their desks were the ones that demanded the team’s specialized focus. Roughly one-third of all scheduling calls were now handled automatically.
Patients noticed too. Hold times shortened, calls were answered faster, and more calls were completed without delay. Survey results told the same story. Patient satisfaction climbed to 4.3 out of 5, and the team no longer needed to backfill open scheduling roles.
“After the call is completely handled by Dash, the patients are prompted with a one or two question survey following their call,” Gabby said. “They’ve been rating her very highly.”
Lessons in Access and Balance
For TSAOG, the change began with understanding their data. By identifying what types of calls were consuming staff time, they could design automation that actually solved the right problem.
“It was about giving our staff time back,” Rebolloso reflected. “Once we saw what was possible, it opened the door for other improvements too.”
Automation has become more than a way to survive a staffing shortage. It became a foundation for a stronger, more sustainable patient access strategy, one that keeps the phones ringing for the right reasons and ensures every patient gets the care they need, when they need it.
Improve Access and Enhance Care with Relatient
Relatient is a healthcare technology leader dedicated to improving patient access through intelligent, mobile-first solutions. Our Best in KLAS platform Dash® integrates with leading EHRs and PM systems to streamline scheduling, personalized communication, online chat, mobile payments, and digital intake. Trusted by over 47,000 providers and managing approximately 150 million appointments annually, Relatient helps healthcare organizations optimize workflows, reduce no-shows, and enhance the patient experience with modern, consumer-driven solutions.