A chiropractic answering service is bought for the calls that come while the adjuster is with a patient and the receptionist is at lunch, and the buying question is whether the service books the appointment or just takes a message. This page is for the practice owner deciding whether to hand the phone to a service: what it should do with the diary, what a virtual receptionist costs at the published prices, what it will never do, and when the missed calls are really a symptom of an unworked recall list that a reminder system fixes for less. The free reminder template on this site sizes the reminder load from your own diary.
What the service should do with the diary
The test is simple: give the service access to the diary and ask whether a caller can leave the call with a booked adjustment, not a message. A chiropractic answering service that only takes messages pushes the booking back to the front desk the next morning, when the caller has already tried the practice down the road. The service should book into the practice's own calendar, read the visit types and durations the practice set, and send the same confirmation the front desk would, so the patient hears one voice and gets one message whoever answered.
What it costs, at the published prices
Ruby publishes virtual receptionist plans at $250 a month for 50 receptionist minutes, $395 for 100 minutes, $720 for 200 minutes and $1,725 for 500 minutes. A booking call runs a few minutes, so a small practice that wants every overflow call booked is buying the hundred-minute tier at least. That is the price of never missing the new-patient call, and for a practice that is growing it is worth it. It is not the price of filling the diary with patients the practice already has, which is where most chiropractic no-shows and gaps actually come from.
When a reminder system does the job instead
Kheirkhah et al. 2016 measured a mean no-show rate of 18.8% across ten clinics and an average cost of $196 per missed appointment, and found a centralised phone system moved the rate only from 16.3% to 15.2%. The Cochrane 2013 review found mobile text reminders raised attendance from about 67.8% to 78.6%, risk ratio 1.14. A chiropractic practice lives on the maintenance visit, and the gaps in its diary are mostly patients who are due and not booked, not callers who could not get through. Recallvia Pro is $20 a month to keep that recall list, send the reminders under the practice name and record who confirmed; buy the answering service for the new-patient calls, and the reminder system for everyone you already have.
Questions people ask about chiropractic answering service
Will a chiropractic answering service book appointments or just take messages?
Ask before you sign. Some services book into your calendar; others take a message the front desk returns the next morning. Only the first kind fills the diary.
How many receptionist minutes does a small chiropractic practice need?
Enough to book every overflow call; at a few minutes a call, the hundred-minute tier is the realistic floor at Ruby's published prices. Count your missed calls for a fortnight before you choose.
Does an answering service reduce no-shows?
Not much on its own. Kheirkhah et al. 2016 found a phone system moved the rate from 16.3% to 15.2%; the reminder and the confirmation record are what move it.
Does Recallvia answer the phone?
No. It keeps the recall list, sends the reminders and records the confirmations; the phone stays with the front desk or the service you choose.