Case study
Synergy Medical was losing patients to voicemail every night.
Synergy Medical went live in June 2026. In roughly two months MedPhone answered about 2,848 calls, took more than half the phone load off the front desk, and started picking up the after hours calls that used to go to voicemail unanswered.
- Michigan
- athenahealth
- Live since June 2026
What we can prove.
Straight from the call log, not inferred from it.
2,848
inbound calls handled by MedPhone
Actual figure from the call log, June to mid August 2026.
53% to 65-75%
of calls handled without reaching staff
Up from just over half at launch. The current figure is an estimate.
2 weeks
from BAA signature to first live call
Including sandbox integration testing and call flow tuning.
| Period | Containment |
|---|---|
| At launch, June 2026 | 53% |
| Now, August 2026 | 65 to 75% |
Containment at launch is measured. The current figure is an estimated range, shown as a range rather than a single number.
| Measure | Hours |
|---|---|
| Reclaimed by MedPhone | 10 to 15 |
| Remaining front desk week | 25 to 30 |
| Full week | 40 |
Estimated from the call volume that no longer reaches staff, at about two minutes of handling time per call. Shown against a 40 hour week for scale.
Why they tried it.
Synergy Medical is a family medicine practice in Michigan led by Dr. Hetal Gandhi, running on athenahealth. Before MedPhone the front desk handled every inbound call end to end.
Baseline call volume and abandonment rate were never systematically tracked, which is itself typical. The pattern was the familiar one: too many calls arriving during patient intake windows, and after hours calls defaulting to voicemail overnight and at weekends.
Rather than adding another front desk hire at roughly $52,000 a year fully loaded, Dr. Hetal Gandhi tried MedPhone instead. It took two weeks from signing the BAA to the first live call.
What we can reasonably infer.
Worked out from the measured figures above. Defensible, but not counted directly.
10 to 15 hours
front desk time reclaimed per week
Derived from the call volume MedPhone handles that no longer reaches staff, at about two minutes of handling time each.
40 to 53 calls
answered live per week outside business hours
Previously these went to voicemail. Derived from measured volume of about 266 calls a week and the 15 to 20 percent of volume family medicine practices typically see after hours.
What those after hours calls were worth.
Every assumption is listed below so you can disagree with any of them and redo the arithmetic. This is an estimate built on benchmarks, not a figure from Synergy's books.
101 to 135 new patients a year
who would otherwise have reached voicemail and booked elsewhere, worth an estimated $51,000 to $108,000 in lifetime revenue.
That is the lifetime value of one year of patients, earned across the years they stay with the practice, not money arriving inside twelve months. Set against a $52,000 front desk hire, MedPhone costs a fraction of one and works every hour of the week.
| Step | Count |
|---|---|
| After hours calls now answered | 2,073 a year |
| New patient inquiries among them | 311 |
| Booked as patients | 156 |
| Who would never have called back | 101 |
Each step applies one published benchmark to the step above it. Disagree with any of them and the arithmetic changes, which is why every assumption is listed below.
| Assumption | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Measured call volume | About 266 a week | 2,848 calls over the 10.7 week window |
| Share of calls arriving after hours | 15 to 20% | Family medicine benchmark, applied to measured volume |
| New patient share of inbound calls | 15% | MGMA staffing benchmarks |
| Inquiry to booked patient conversion | 50% | Industry standard for well handled calls |
| Patients who would never have called back | 65% | Published non recall research |
| Primary care patient lifetime value | $500 to $800 | Same range used in our own calculator |
What worked better than expected.
The messy calls. Simple booking was always going to work. What surprised us is how much cancelling, rescheduling and refill chasing MedPhone now finishes on its own, without handing the patient back to the front desk halfway through.
What still transfers more than we would like.
When there is genuinely nothing free. If a patient wants a particular provider in a particular week and nothing is open, MedPhone hands them to staff rather than talking through alternatives. That is the next thing we are fixing.
Your practice will look different. Let us run your numbers.
What this is worth to you depends on your call volume, how many go unanswered today, and your payer mix. Bring twenty minutes and your call reports and we will do this same arithmetic on your practice.
Book a 20 minute demo