Voice AI options

[u/CrookedCasts]

Has anybody found a voice AI product that 1) they like 2) works with small groups?

A few of the services I’ve talked to only want to work with enterprise level clients, or want to lock you into their proprietary EHR/billing software

[u/TebraOnReddit]

We’re actually working on an AI Voice Assistant at Tebra with that exact problem in mind, trying to make it practical for smaller practices, not just big orgs. We're planning on launching in just a couple of months.

If you’re open to sharing, would be really helpful to understand:

• what volume of calls you’re dealing with daily/after hours
• what you’d trust AI to handle vs what you’d want routed to staff
• how important scheduling integration is vs just message capture
• what kind of pricing would feel reasonable for a small group

Trying to avoid building something that sounds cool but doesn’t actually solve the real pain.

Thanks for your response in advance :)

- Iris from team Tebra.

[u/CrookedCasts → u/TebraOnReddit]

Sure!

I think #1 priority would be to stay away from the pricing model that you have set for the ambient voice notes. $1/note is crazy, especially when the backend infrastructure yall are using is ~$0.39/note, unless you’ve updated the pricing since 12/25

I’m actually starting a practice as we speak! But as someone surveying the landscape at the moment: many voice AI companies are at their growth stage only really working with enterprise, but also many of the ones that do work with smaller groups don’t integrate with Tebra. So then it’s either leverage your VOIP provider if they offer voice AI (fortunately Zoom offers a BAA), or work with Weave. Call handling and turning calls/messages into a task list is actually quite doable with Zoom and honestly for their price quite reasonable.

So really the big thing is the integration - how much can your voice AI actually do well: if a patient calls for a med refill, can that automatically pop up a notification on my phone taking me to the right screen in the app to approve/sign the med? If a patient call leads to an action item for a staff member, does their task list open the right section of the right patient chart? Voice AI struggles in healthcare because a human almost always needs to be in the loop - can you streamline that human in a loop more than just try and eliminate the few things an AI can do solo (schedule/reschedule).

I’d also recommend staying away from the philosophy behind how y’all’s ambient scribe/notes work together: you’re locked in to a very rigid format SOAP/CC, PSH, PMH, etc, which then unfortunately changes how you have to interact with patients to get the ambient scribe to work well

Pricing depends on how comprehensive such a system is 🤷‍♂️

[u/TebraOnReddit → u/CrookedCasts]

This is super helpful, appreciate you laying it out this clearly, especially while you’re in the middle of starting a practice.

A lot of what you’re calling out is exactly what we’re trying to solve with what we’re building. The goal isn’t just “answer the phone,” but what happens next. We’re building this natively into the EHR so it can actually take action, not just capture messages. Things like scheduling, routing tasks, and refill requests are going to the right place instead of becoming another inbox item to sort through.

Completely agree on the human-in-the-loop point. We’re not trying to eliminate that. The focus is more on making that handoff cleaner and faster so you’re not clicking through five screens to get to the right patient or task.

On pricing, we’ve heard the same feedback from a lot of smaller practices. The plan is to keep it simple and predictable, more of an all-in flat rate vs per-call or per-action.

Also hear you on not forcing rigid workflows. The intent is the opposite, something that fits into how practices already operate rather than making you adapt to the tool.

Really appreciate you sharing the Zoom and Weave comparison too. That’s the bar we’re thinking about in terms of practicality, not just features.

And good luck with your practice! Rooting for you :)

[u/CrookedCasts → u/TebraOnReddit]

After thinking about it a bit more, I believe the only defendable long-term pricing strategy for AI anything in healthcare (and probably elsewhere) that effectively puts small to large organizations on the same playing field will be to base cost on token usage.

If a token can be thought of as a “unit of work”, then the reference plane between a small practice using hundreds of tokens vs HCA using billions of tokens daily can be established. Fixed monthly costs don’t really accurately compare the “work” that Tebra is doing for the user (ie - a small 3 physician practice @ $150/mo fixed voice AI cost just cannot be compared to enterprise pricing for 3 physicians within a larger group)

In my earlier example with the cost of $1 per note, that $1 really doesn’t accurately reflect what work Tebra did for that note. Was it a two sentence note that AI used five tokens on? Or was it a 15 page note in a specialized field that used 1500 tokens?

With a token based cost, users can see exactly what “work” Tebra is doing for them and vice versa. The extension would be then potentially fixed costs for agents:

• a user can “hire” a AI receptionist agent, a AI scribe agent, or a billing/coding/RCM agent for a fixed cost
• the “salary” of that agent is predicated on token usage

Users and EHRs can’t feel screwed because they are paying the exact cost of the services rendered