From a Button Press to the Conversation
Caller IQ and AI Caller Type ID work hand in hand. Caller IQ transcribes and analyzes a practice's tracked calls. After the call ends, AI Caller Type ID further analyzes what was said and decides which of the four categories fits, based on what the caller told the front office.
There is no menu, no prompt to sit through, and nothing for the caller to do. They dial the number and the team answers.
The Four Caller Types
Take a closer look at the four caller types and who gets sorted into each:
- New Patient. The caller says they have never been to the practice, asks about becoming a patient, a first appointment, whether the practice takes their insurance, or what the new-patient process looks like.
- Existing Patient. The caller says they have been in before, mentions a past visit or treatment in progress, or refers to already having a chart.
- Non-Patient. The call is not about patient care. Vendors, sales calls, job applicants, and wrong numbers land here.
- Undetermined. The call does not contain enough for the AI to classify it with confidence.
Undetermined is the category worth watching. A short hangup, or a call where someone only asks for hours, gets sorted as undetermined instead of being assigned a category on barely any evidence. An undetermined count that climbs month over month is worth raising with a DG Customer Success representative.
What the Non-Patient Category Shows
The key press never captured non-patient calls. A vendor, a staffing agency, or a robocall was never going to identify itself accurately, and the prompt could not be skipped, so those calls still arrived in the reporting as new or existing patients. AI Caller Type ID labels them as what they are.
That produces a figure most practices have never had: how much of the front-office phone day goes to calls that were never going to become appointments. Every one of those calls is answered by the same person who is meant to answer patient calls. A practice reviewing staffing, call coverage, or after-hours routing now has a number to work from instead of an impression.
What the System Listens For, and Where the Change Shows Up in Reporting
Explicit statements carry the most weight. "I've never been there before," "I'm already a patient," and "I don't go there, I'm calling about something else" are the clearest signals. Clear inferences count too, such as a caller referring to work the practice did last spring.
Three rules govern how the classification gets applied:
- Without conclusive evidence, the call defaults to Undetermined rather than being assigned a category on inference alone.
- When someone calls to book for another person, the category follows the person receiving care. A daughter scheduling her father's first appointment produces a New Patient call, because the patient is new to the practice.
- Patient status must be linked to the practice that is taking the call. A caller who mentions a dental cleaning at another office last year is not an existing patient of that practice.
Caller type feeds new patient inquiry reporting everywhere it appears: the Dashboard, Inquiry Reports, and the Inquiries log. The layout stays the same. The source of the classification is what changes.
What Changes for Patients and the Front Office
The Call Gets Shorter
Removing the IVR takes a step off the front of every call and removes a decision the caller had to make while still deciding whether to stay on the line. For a patient calling about pain, it shortens the wait until someone picks up.
The Recording Notice
An automated recording notice plays in place of the IVR greeting. Recording consent laws vary by state, and many states require the consent of all parties (also known as all-party consent). For this reason, Doctor Genius enables the notice by default on every account. However, practices in a one-party consent state may request that the notice be removed, provided they inform their staff that calls will still be recorded.
The Front Office Does Nothing Differently
Practice owners can rest assured that there is no automatic change to how calls are answered. There is no new script to follow; the phone gets picked up the way it always has been. That said, Doctor Genius shares coaching on the kinds of statements the AI listens for, because a front office that confirms early whether a caller has been in before gives it clearer evidence to work with.
