An answered call is an activity. Access is the result of the right activity, and it allows the patient to reach the correct next step in their care journey.

In a recent Becker’s webinar on AI and orthopedic patient access, Marie D’Aiuto, VP of Patient Access Innovation at Assort Health, and Dr. Michael T. Rohmiller, an orthopedic spine surgeon at Beacon Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine and strategic advisor to Assort Health, discuss a practical question: what has to happen after a patient gets through?

Their answer is the webinar’s central idea: the front door should not stop at intent. A call answered, a request captured, or a slot offered does not necessarily mean the patient is closer to appropriate care. In orthopedic scheduling, the next step depends on what the patient needs and how the practice works.

The Research Sets Up The Question; Orthopedic Examples Make It Concrete

The speakers highlight a 2024 JAMA Network Open study of 985 simulated calls to cancer clinics. In 41.5% of calls, the caller received an appointment date or instructions for scheduling. The study measured access in oncology, not orthopedics, so it does not establish an orthopedic access rate. It does, however, give the speakers a way to ask where patients can get stuck before reaching a clinic. 

The webinar then turns to orthopedic examples. D’Aiuto described patients at TidalHealth Peninsula Orthopaedic Institute waiting as long as 90 minutes to get through, with some driving to the office just to schedule. Rohmiller recalled a longtime patient who spent 30 minutes on hold trying to coordinate an appointment before texting his personal phone directly. 

In both cases, the patient had made an effort to reach the practice. The access process still had to help them make progress.

“First Available” Might Be The Wrong Appointment

The speakers use a patient calling about knee pain to show why a calendar alone cannot determine the right next step. The patient might need sports medicine, a joint-replacement surgeon, another orthopedic subspecialty, or a different care path, depending on symptoms and prior treatment.

Rohmiller also described a patient with a wrist injury after a fall. The first open appointment might be with a sports medicine provider, while a hand specialist could be a better fit. A booking that looks complete in the schedule can still leave the patient in the wrong place.

The route may depend on whether the patient has seen the practice before, which provider treated them, what imaging they have had, what kind of visit is needed, where they can be seen, and whether payer or referral requirements apply. Those details are specific to the practice and its clinicians. The webinar’s point is not that every call needs a long interview. It is that scheduling rules need to account for the details that change the destination.

For a deeper look at how orthopedic front-office workflows intersect with scheduling, referrals, and other practice operations, see Assort’s guide to orthopedic practice management.

Define What “Finished Correctly” Means Before Automating

A workflow can look successful on an activity report while leaving the patient’s request unresolved. The deck distinguishes between actions such as answering a call or giving instructions and outcomes such as booking the right appointment, completing a reschedule, or escalating an urgent issue to the right person.

That distinction changes what a practice should measure. Call volume, hold time, and answer rate can show whether patients are getting through. They do not, by themselves, show whether the request was completed.

D’Aiuto recommends looking at a broader set of measures after go-live, including scheduling completion, repeat calls, transfers, abandonment, and wait times. The deck adds whether the work was completed in the EHR with an outcome recorded. The question behind the scorecard is straightforward: did the patient reach the appropriate next step, and did the practice’s record reflect what happened?

Build The Rules With The People Who Use Them

The speakers describe scheduling logic as practice knowledge held across schedulers, clinicians, administrators, and practice leaders. Schedulers know where common requests get stuck. Physicians know what changes the clinical route. Administrators know which requirements need to be consistent across locations and systems.

Rohmiller shared an example of a note about a departing partner being misunderstood, leading patients to be told that he had retired. It illustrates why a workflow needs clear ownership and maintenance, not only a set of rules at launch.

The same applies to exceptions. The deck recommends starting with repeatable work, then mapping the cases that need more judgment. Urgent symptoms, post-operative concerns, incomplete information, conflicting rules, and requests to speak with a person may need a different path.

A Handoff Should Not Make The Patient Start Over

When a request moves from an AI-supported workflow to a staff member, the context already gathered should move with it. Rohmiller emphasized that patients should not have to repeat information they have already shared.

The webinar frames escalation as a boundary to define before automation goes live: which requests can follow known rules, and which need a person’s judgment? That boundary will vary by practice and workflow. What should remain consistent is that the handoff includes the information needed to continue the conversation.

A Booking Is Only Complete If The Workflow Is Complete

The deck’s examples show how different workflows can finish in different ways. At Concord Orthopaedics, it reports that 84% of referrals were automated end to end, and half were matched with a better-fit provider. Read Concord’s customer story.

The speakers also describe a cancellation that opened a slot around 9 p.m. at South Shore Orthopedics. Another patient booked the appointment as the schedule updated. The example connects access to follow-through: an open slot only helps if the practice can make it available and complete the booking. 

These examples are specific to the workflows discussed in the webinar. For a broader how-to on patient access automation, see Assort’s guide for specialty practices.

Five Questions To Take Into Your Next Access Review

The webinar closes with a short set of questions for access leaders:

• What does “finished correctly” mean for this workflow?
• Which exceptions have we mapped, and which should stay with a person?
• Who from the practice writes and approves the scheduling rules?
• When a request is handed off, does the staff member receive its context?
• Does the work end in the EHR with an outcome the practice can measure?

The questions bring the discussion back to its central test: an answered call is not the same as care access. The workflow succeeds when the patient reaches the appropriate next step, and the practice can see what happened.

Watch the Becker’s webinar on AI and orthopedic patient access.

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