Client Profile
The Pain Experts is a multi-location interventional pain management practice using eClinicalWorks (eCW) to manage patient records, scheduling, and day-to-day clinical operations.
For a specialty practice like The Pain Experts, patient access involves more than scheduling appointments. Every inbound call has to be understood and directed appropriately, whether a patient needs to schedule a new appointment, reach the front desk, discuss a procedure, request a refill, access medical records, or address another need. New-patient scheduling adds another layer of complexity, requiring the right patient information, provider, location, real-time availability, and booking workflow inside the practice's existing systems.
As patient demand grew, The Pain Experts recognized an opportunity to create more capacity across both patient access and new-patient scheduling.
The Challenge
The Pain Experts' front desk managed a significant volume of inbound calls daily, estimated by the practice at 200 to 300 per day, alongside the other responsibilities required to keep a multi-location specialty practice running. With that volume came a structural problem: new-patient scheduling capacity was tied directly to front-desk availability, and front-desk availability had limits.
“We experienced significant challenges with appointment scheduling and ensuring someone was consistently available to answer incoming calls. Our front desk staffing was not sufficient to manage the high call volume effectively.”
Karolina Ojdanic, Director of Operations, The Pain Experts
The Pain Experts leadership identified early on that technology could create the additional capacity the practice needed. But their expectations for what that technology had to do were specific. A solution that answered calls and collected information, then handed the work back to front-desk staff to finish, would not solve the problem. The solution needed to create capacity at the patient-access front door while also automating the new-patient scheduling workflow end to end.
They spent several months evaluating AI vendors against that standard. A prior vendor had demoed well and appeared to understand their requirements, including full integration with eClinicalWorks. In practice, the system could not deliver the EMR integration or the specialty scheduling workflows the practice required. That experience gave them a precise understanding of what the next solution had to accomplish, and a clear standard for evaluating it.
The Approach
The Pain Experts chose to implement Netfor's Managed Patient Access, an AI-powered approach to managing inbound patient calls, routing requests, and automating new-patient scheduling within its existing workflows.
Powered by IntakeGuard, the AI agent serves as a front door for inbound patient calls. It identifies why a patient is calling and directs requests such as procedure scheduling, triage and refills, billing and medical records, and appointment changes to the appropriate team. When a patient needs to schedule a new appointment, the agent can gather the required information, identify the appropriate provider and location, search real-time availability, and complete the appointment directly within the eClinicalWorks workflow.
They also continued refining the experience after launch. Provider options were expanded to include nurse practitioners and other mid-level providers. Insurance and demographic collection was moved from a lengthy voice prompt to a post-call text link, reducing drop-offs during data collection. The Pain Experts also identified the need for location-specific fallback routing when provider availability changed at one of its locations. The result is a scheduling model that reflects how the practice actually operates, rather than one that required the practice to adapt to a generic AI workflow.
Before vs. After
| Category | Before | After |
| Patient Access Capacity | Inbound patient calls relied heavily on front-desk availability for identification, routing, and scheduling. | The AI agent serves as an additional patient-access front door, identifying caller needs, routing requests, and handling new-patient scheduling when appropriate. |
| Scheduling Workflow | Staff managed the full new-patient intake and scheduling workflow | The AI Agent moves qualifying patients through intake and completes appointments through an eClinicalWorks-integrated workflow |
| EMR Integration | A previous AI implementation could not deliver the integrated scheduling workflow The Pain Experts required | Scheduling operates through an eClinicalWorks-integrated workflow designed around The Pain Experts’ existing processes |
| Demand Visibility | The Pain Experts had limited visibility into how much scheduling demand was reaching the practice without converting to appointments | Reporting now shows capture rates, booking activity, estimated booked-appointment value, and additional appointment opportunity |
| Workflow Adaptability | Changes in providers, availability, and intake requirements created additional work for the scheduling team | The Pain Experts can refine provider options, intake methods, and routing rules as practice conditions change |
| Patient Routing | Front-desk staff helped identify patient needs and direct callers to the appropriate team. | The AI agent identifies the reason for the call and directs patients to the appropriate workflow or human team when needed. |
Monthly Results
3,254
Total patient calls the AI Agent handled
533
Patients who called in looking to book an appointment
77.5%
Of those calls booked by AI Agent without human intervention
6.8x
Value-to-cost ratio from implementing Netfor's AI Intake Agent
In the most recent measured month, the AI scheduling workflow handled 3,254 total calls, including 533 that qualified as new-patient scheduling calls. Of those qualified callers, 77.5% reached the booking stage, giving The Pain Experts a structured, repeatable way to move patient demand through the scheduling process.
Based on a verified value-per-appointment metric, completed bookings represented approximately $28,750 in estimated appointment value during the measured period. That figure reflects real scheduling work completed by the AI agent inside eClinicalWorks, without requiring staff to finish the process manually.
The deeper reporting also gives The Pain Experts visibility into why appointments do not convert, distinguishing between appointment availability, patient choice, technical issues, and other scheduling outcomes. That insight gives the practice a clearer picture of where additional patient-access opportunities exist and where the workflow can continue to be refined.
“We wanted to make scheduling easier and more accessible for our patients while reducing the workload on our front desk team. By giving patients another way to schedule their appointments, our staff has more time to focus on the patients who need direct assistance and provide a better overall experience.”
Karolina Ojdanic, Director of Operations, The Pain Experts
The Pain Experts' experience reflects the standard it established from the beginning. The conversational AI agent had to fit the practice's actual workflows, integrate with its existing systems, help patients reach the right destination, and perform new-patient scheduling itself rather than adding another layer of coordination to the front desk.
Built for What's Next
The Pain Experts’ scheduling model is still in its early stages, but the implementation has already created a foundation that can adapt as the organization evolves.
Netfor continues to work alongside The Pain Experts to refine the patient-access experience based on real interactions. That includes improving provider and location availability logic, simplifying how patient information is collected, refining routing behavior, and addressing technical friction identified through actual scheduling attempts.
For The Pain Experts, the opportunity now extends beyond managing today's call volume. The practice has a Managed Patient Access model that can be refined as provider availability changes, patient demand grows, and patient needs evolve, giving leadership a scalable way to approach access, routing, and scheduling capacity going forward.
See how Netfor's AI-Enabled Operations can support patient access, intake, scheduling, and high-volume healthcare workflows while keeping your team focused on patient care.