Overview
ForHealth, one of Australia’s leading accessible healthcare providers, partnered with Arinco to reduce call wait times and improve the appointment experience across more than 95 medical and dental centres across Australia. Arinco built a custom AI-powered solution to automate appointment changes over the phone or via SMS, support multiple languages, and detect caller sentiment for seamless escalation to live staff. The pilot achieved strong results, with the AI-powered solution expected to handle over 920,000 calls annually. Built on Azure and designed to scale, the platform is set to handle over two million calls per year while improving patient satisfaction and operational efficiency.
About ForHealth
ForHealth is a network of more than 95 medical and dental centres and over 1,600 independent health practitioners across Australia. As an industry leader in accessible healthcare, ForHealth supports independent health practitioners with over 7 million patients annually, from the largest cities to the most remote and at-risk communities.
Business challenge
ForHealth was facing operational challenges due to high call volumes, particularly during peak hours like before work and lunch breaks. Patients could experience long wait times when attempting to reschedule or cancel appointments in these peak periods, leading to frustration and reduced satisfaction.
Managing over two million calls per year, including more than 200 simultaneous callers at peak, amplified the challenge, especially as calls were distributed across over 95 centres with varying demand and language preferences. The complexity of delivering a consistent and high-quality experience across this distributed network made traditional approaches difficult to scale.
ForHealth had previously trialled an alternative AI solution which, while it fell short of expectations, offered valuable learnings. These informed the need for a more robust and scalable solution, one that could accommodate multilingual interactions, dynamically scale with demand and provide a flexible interface for continuous improvement.
Solution
Arinco partnered with ForHealth to design and implement a custom AI-powered phone and SMS solution to automate the appointment management process and improve the patient experience.
Starting with a pilot, the team worked closely with ForHealth to understand the specific needs and operational nuances across their 95+ centres and tailor the solution accordingly. Built on Microsoft Azure and powered by OpenAI models, the advanced solution leveraged speech-to-text, machine learning and natural language processing to automate appointment rescheduling and cancellations, enabling patients to manage appointments without speaking with a human receptionist.
Multilingual support was built into the solution from the outset, allowing the AI system to communicate in all major languages to accommodate ForHealth’s diverse patient base.
The system was also designed to be fully customisable, enabling ForHealth to adjust workflow, conversation styles and languages without technical expertise. This allows each centre to tailor the system to their unique requirements, such as altering the language or tone of the bot’s interactions.
Arinco also ensured seamless integration with ForHealth’s existing systems, such as its CRM, allowing for real-time data access and personalisation. Patients could be greeted by name and provided with appointment-specific information, improving the sense of continuity and service. Sentiment analysis capabilities also mean the system can detect frustration or dissatisfaction and escalate the call to a human receptionist when needed, ensuring that patients who require human support aren’t left behind.
In addition to the phone system, the Arinco team developed an SMS interface that gives patients the option to manage appointments via text, offering greater convenience for those who prefer not to talk on the phone or are short on time. Looking ahead, ForHealth is exploring the addition of appointment reminders and proactive nudges for follow-up visits such as blood tests and check-ups, further improving patient engagement and retention.
Arinco is also developing an admin portal that will provide ForHealth with real-time transcripts of all AI interactions, allowing them to monitor and better assess patient satisfaction. This feedback will enable continuous improvements to the AI system, ensuring it remains aligned with patient needs and delivers a consistently high-quality experience.
Outcomes
The pilot demonstrated strong early results, validating the potential of the AI solution to transform ForHealth’s appointment experience at scale. While currently deployed in a limited capacity, the platform is built for network-wide rollout across more than 95 centres and over two million annual calls. Key outcomes include:
- Over 920,000 calls projected to be handled annually by AI, based on a 36.8% containment rate observed during the pilot phase.
- Over 17,000 staff hours expected to be saved each year.
- Over 56,000 additional appointments projected per year, representing a 10% uplift in total bookings due to 24/7 availability and reduced no-shows.
- Zero hold times for patients cancelling or rescheduling standard appointments.
- Improved patient satisfaction, with the AI system detecting frustration and offering seamless escalation to a live receptionist when needed.
- SMS-based appointment management introduced, providing an alternative for patients who prefer text-based communication.
- Operational efficiency enhanced by offloading routine receptionist tasks to AI, allowing staff to focus on more complex, higher-value interactions.
- Multilingual support, improving accessibility for non-English-speaking patients across the network.
- Flexible, customisable design allows each centre to tailor the AI experience to local needs and preferences without technical expertise.
- Scalable platform architecture designed to support over two million calls annually and more than 200 concurrent callers.
- Data-driven workforce planning, using AI reporting to better align receptionist staffing with real-time demand.
