Case study
How a Michigan family medicine practice cut front desk call load with MedPhone.
Synergy Medical went live in June 2026. In roughly two months MedPhone handled about 2,848 inbound calls, more than halved front desk call load, and started answering after hours calls that used to reach voicemail.
- Michigan
- athenahealth
- Live since June 2026
What we measured.
Taken from the call log rather than inferred.
2,848
inbound calls handled by MedPhone
Actual figure from the call log, June to mid August 2026.
53% to 65-75%
containment, launch to now
Share of calls resolved without transferring to a human. Current figure is an estimate.
2 weeks
from BAA signature to first live call
Including sandbox integration testing and call flow tuning.
| Period | Containment |
|---|---|
| At launch, June 2026 | 53% |
| Now, August 2026 | 65 to 75% |
Containment at launch is measured. The current figure is an estimated range, shown as a range rather than a single number.
| Measure | Hours |
|---|---|
| Reclaimed by MedPhone | 10 to 15 |
| Remaining front desk week | 25 to 30 |
| Full week | 40 |
Estimated from the call volume that no longer reaches staff, at about two minutes of handling time per call. Shown against a 40 hour week for scale.
Why they piloted it.
Synergy Medical is a family medicine practice in Michigan led by Dr. Hetal Gandhi, running on athenahealth. Before MedPhone the front desk handled every inbound call end to end.
Baseline call volume and abandonment rate were never systematically tracked, which is itself typical. The pattern was the familiar one: too many calls arriving during patient intake windows, and after hours calls defaulting to voicemail overnight and at weekends.
Rather than adding another front desk hire at roughly $52,000 a year fully loaded, Dr. Hetal Gandhi piloted MedPhone instead. Deployment took two weeks from BAA signature to first live call, through the athenahealth Marketplace Partner API.
What we estimate.
Derived from the measured figures. Reasonable, but not counted directly.
10 to 15 hours
front desk time reclaimed per week
Derived from the call volume MedPhone handles that no longer reaches staff, at about two minutes of handling time each.
70 to 90 calls
answered live per week outside business hours
Previously these went to voicemail. Family medicine practices typically see 15 to 20 percent of volume after hours.
What the after hours calls are worth.
Every assumption is listed below so you can disagree with any of them and redo the arithmetic. This is an estimate built on benchmarks, not a figure from Synergy's books.
177 to 228 new patients a year
who would otherwise have reached voicemail and booked elsewhere, worth an estimated $89,000 to $183,000 in lifetime revenue.
That is the lifetime value of one year of patients, earned over the years they stay with the practice, not revenue arriving inside twelve months. Against MedPhone at about $14,400 a year, it is roughly 6 to 13 times the cost.
| Step | Count |
|---|---|
| After hours calls now answered | 3,640 a year |
| New patient inquiries among them | 546 |
| Booked as patients | 273 |
| Who would never have called back | 177 |
Each step applies one published benchmark to the step above it. Disagree with any of them and the arithmetic changes, which is why every assumption is listed below.
| Assumption | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| After hours calls now answered | 70 to 90 per week | Confirmed range from the pilot |
| New patient share of inbound calls | 15% | MGMA staffing benchmarks |
| Inquiry to booked patient conversion | 50% | Industry standard for well handled calls |
| Patients who would never have called back | 65% | Published non recall research |
| Primary care patient lifetime value | $500 to $800 | Same range used in our own calculator |
What worked better than expected.
Multi step conversational handling. MedPhone was expected to handle simple appointment booking well. It has also handled cancellations, rescheduling, and refill requests conversationally without kicking to the front desk, which was the harder workflow set to get right.
What still transfers more than we would like.
Appointment slot lookups that return no matching availability. When MedPhone cannot find an open slot matching the caller constraints, whether a specific provider, a specific window, or urgency, the current fallback is to transfer to staff rather than offer alternatives conversationally. This is a tracked product improvement.
Your numbers will be different. Let us run them.
What moves for your practice depends on baseline call volume, current abandonment rate, and payer mix. Twenty minutes with your call reports and we will do the same math.
Book a 20 minute demo