Case Study — Virginia Urology
Advancing the patient experience and call center performance
Raleigh Orthopaedic
6 locations · 54 providers · athenahealth
Key Wins
The Platform
What Is Relatient and the Dash® Platform?
Relatient is a patient engagement platform that helps healthcare organizations automate scheduling, streamline communication and reduce inbound call volume.
The Dash® platform combines intelligent scheduling, automated messaging and AI-powered voice technology to improve patient access and operational efficiency across every channel patients use to reach you.
The Stakes
Why Patient Access Failures Hurt Growth
When patients can’t get an appointment quickly, the cost compounds — across revenue, retention and team capacity. The math behind broken access is unforgiving.
15–30%
of appointments go unfilled
Churn
Patients leave if access is delayed
Bottleneck
Call centers become a chokepoint
Burnout
Staff turnover and fatigue rise
01 — Context
The Goal
Raleigh Orthopaedic, a leading orthopedic practice in North Carolina with over 50 providers across six locations, set out to modernize how patients access care. With rising call volume and complex provider preferences, the team needed a way to reduce friction for patients and ease the burden on staff.
Improving access wasn’t just about efficiency — it was about meeting patient expectations in a digital-first world.
The AI has been able to take on about 20% of the calls that come in every day, handling mundane tasks like confirming an appointment, a location, or canceling and rescheduling.
The Challenge
- High inbound call volume overwhelming the call center
- Complex provider scheduling rules across multiple locations
- Limited patient access outside business hours
- Rising demand for digital-first healthcare experiences
02 — Approach
The Solution
Centralized Scheduling
Standardized provider rules and consolidated scheduling into a single call-center model — improving accuracy, reducing complexity and streamlining operations across all six locations.
- Improved scheduling accuracy
- Reduced staff complexity
- One source of truth across locations
Online Self-Scheduling
Patients book 24/7 from any device. The practice captured demand outside business hours and freed the phones during peak periods.
- Always-on patient access
- Phones relieved during peaks
- 33% booked after-hours
Agentic Voice AI
Dash® Voice AI handles confirmations, cancellations and rescheduling so schedulers can focus on complex, high-value patient conversations.
- Automates routine inbound calls
- 8% lower call abandonment
- Scales without new headcount
In a call center environment with high staff turnover rates in healthcare, you can get schedulers trained really quickly in Dash® with the guided user experience that provides them with a constant resource to succeed.
03 — Outcome
The Relatient Difference
Relatient’s intelligent, rules-based engine powers Raleigh Orthopaedic’s entire access strategy — centralized scheduling, online self-scheduling and agentic AI. Provider rules are applied consistently across every channel, so patients are matched to the right appointment type, provider and location no matter how they schedule.
The centralized platform also simplifies training and onboarding by reducing the dependency on tribal knowledge, while Dash® Voice AI manages routine tasks so schedulers can focus on patients with complex needs.
It's just very user-friendly and easy to acclimate to. Dash® is easy to convey to other departments as well as my new hires. The self-scheduling is something our patients absolutely love.
Executive Summary
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Frequently Asked Questions
How can healthcare organizations increase patient access?
Voice AI automates routine interactions like scheduling, confirmations, cancellations and rescheduling. At Raleigh Orthopaedic it handled 54% of inbound calls.
How does Voice AI reduce call center volume in healthcare?
By offering self-scheduling and digital access tools, providers let patients book anytime — significantly expanding capacity without adding staff.
Can self-scheduling increase patient access?
Yes. Raleigh Orthopaedic saw 33% of appointments scheduled after-hours — demand that would otherwise have been missed.
What is the ROI of patient scheduling automation?
Higher conversion, lower abandonment, better provider utilization and reduced call-center cost combine to drive measurable revenue growth and savings.
How does centralized scheduling improve operations?
It standardizes provider rules across locations, reducing training time and matching patients to the right provider and appointment type every time.
