How NCRVA automated complex retina scheduling and reduced missed calls with Assort Health

Assort handles ~10,000 monthly calls with ~33% previously missed, freeing staff to focus on patient care

Improving access for urgent and routine retina care across six locations and seven specialists

Northern California Retina-Vitreous Associates (NCRVA) operates across six locations with seven retina specialists, serving a high-acuity patient population and managing over 10,000 calls per month. Even with 16 front office specialists, the team was missing about one-third of calls, impacting urgent case scheduling and straining relationships with referring providers.

“On our scheduling guidelines, we have that “retinal detachment” needs to be scheduled within one to two days. So Assort can identify the urgency of that appointment and get the patient in as soon as possible based on our guidelines.”
Erica, Office Manager

The complexity of retina scheduling, with appointment lengths of 90 minutes to three hours, diagnosis-based urgency rules, and payer-specific requirements, made finding and training additional staff costly and time-consuming. NCRVA needed a scalable solution that could manage high call volume while accurately applying these rules. 

Assort’s Voice AI agent now answers and routes routine calls, applies predefined scheduling guidelines for urgent diagnoses, and even identifies HMO patients requiring prior authorization before booking. The AI also reads past appointment notes to determine follow-up timing or convert an established patient to a new patient based on the last visit date, ensuring no detail is missed.

Impact

• ~10,000 monthly calls with ~33% previously missed, freeing staff to focus on patient care
• Urgent retinal detachment cases are scheduled within 1–2 days
• Accurate scheduling based on diagnosis, visit history, and insurance rules
• Faster access for patients and referring providers
• Adherence to retina follow-up rules (e.g., 28-day requirement) without staff intervention