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Hearing care

The AI receptionist audiologist practices put on their front desk line

ClinicAll is an AI receptionist audiologist practices put on their main line, so that a caller reaches the front desk while your team is in the sound booth with someone else. It answers in the name of your practice, takes the reason for the call and hands your team a request it can act on. Should a wearer or a relative want to know whom they have reached, the answer is the practice’s virtual receptionist.

Phone calls to a hearing care practice are rarely about appointments alone. A wearer rings because a device has gone quiet, a relative calls for a parent who struggles on the phone, a new patient wants to know what a first fitting involves. Each of these needs a different note, and the receptionist writes the one your audiologist will want to read.

ClinicAll covers more than hearing care, and the overview of specialties lists the other practices it answers for. This page covers calls to a hearing care practice and the tasks the receptionist handles. It explains how sudden hearing loss is handled and what stays with your audiologists. It also sets out the rules in France, Luxembourg and Germany.

By callback

No booking software for this specialty is connected yet: the AI receptionist takes the appointment request and your team calls the patient back to confirm it.

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A hearing aid dropped on the bathroom floor · Illustrative call, not a real patient
  • Patient: Hello, I dropped my hearing aid this morning and now it makes no sound at all.
  • Receptionist: I’m sorry to hear that. Can I take your name, please?
  • Patient: It’s Margaret. It’s the right one, and I only have the left one working now.
  • Receptionist: Thank you, Margaret. I’ve noted that the right aid stopped working after a fall and that you have only the left one. When is a good time for the team to call you?
  • Patient: Any time after two this afternoon, on this number.
  • Receptionist: Noted. The team will call you after two to arrange a repair visit.

Callback request taken for the team

Your calls, in practice

Appointment calls still come first. Someone wants a hearing test, a regular asks for the yearly check, another person needs to change a visit booked for next week. For a new request the receptionist records the caller’s name, date of birth, a number to ring back and the kind of appointment wanted, with the times that suit them.

Changing a visit that is already booked works differently. The receptionist never moves or cancels an appointment itself: your team confirms. Its note identifies the hearing test or check the caller is talking about, the alternative they would prefer and a good time to ring them, and it stays in your dashboard until the desk deals with it.

Adjustment requests are the calls that most need a careful note. A wearer says voices sound tinny, their own voice booms or the television is still hard to follow. The receptionist asks which ear and which device, if the caller knows, and records what they notice and since when. The fine-tuning itself stays with your audiologist, at the practice.

Fault and repair calls are often more pressing for the patient. An aid has stopped working, a tube has split, the charger no longer lights up or the device went through the washing machine. The receptionist notes the fault in the caller’s words and whether they are left with no working aid at all, so your team can see who should come in first.

First fittings bring calls from people who have never worn a device and from families calling on their behalf. They ask what a first appointment involves, whether they need a prescription beforehand and how long the process takes. The receptionist answers what you have approved about your practice, records the questions it cannot answer and notes whether the caller already holds an ENT prescription.

Quotations and reimbursement fill another share of the line. Someone holding a quotation cannot make sense of one item, or wonders how much the health insurance will pay back. Explaining a quotation, naming a price or promising a reimbursement is never the receptionist’s part. Its note carries the question and says whether a quotation already exists, so the audiologist who rings back has the paperwork ready.

Follow-up and trial periods produce their own calls. A patient testing a device wants to report how it went at a family dinner, or to ask whether a different model would suit them better. The receptionist writes down which device is on trial and what the patient says about it, so the audiologist begins the follow-up with that account.

Then there are the small calls that still take time at the desk. A patient needs batteries, a new charger, wax guards or domes, or asks how to clean a device. Where you have given the receptionist approved wording, for instance on collecting batteries at reception, it uses that wording; anything else becomes a callback request for your team.

Replacement calls close the list. A wearer whose aid is ageing, damaged beyond repair or lost asks what replacing it involves. The receptionist records the current device if the caller can name it, the reason for replacing it and any question about coverage, and leaves the answer to your team. To see what unanswered calls mean for your own desk, try the missed-calls calculator with your practice’s own call volume.

  • Book, reschedule or cancel an appointment
  • Request a hearing aid adjustment
  • Report a fault or request a repair
  • Ask about a first hearing aid fitting
  • Understand a quotation and reimbursement
  • Arrange follow-up or discuss a trial
  • Ask for batteries, accessories or maintenance advice
  • Ask about replacing a hearing aid

What ClinicAll takes, and what it leaves to you

Hearing tests, fittings and checks all reach your hearing care practice as callback requests, never as slots already sitting in the diary. Your team receives each one with the caller’s details and the times they prefer, then phones back to fix the appointment. The caller is told to expect that call, and no booking exists before it.

The dashboard note is there to shorten that confirmation call. It states the kind of appointment, any device involved and when the caller is available. A repair check and a first fitting look different on screen, which lets the desk decide which patient to ring first.

A caller does not always have to wait to be rung back. The receptionist transfers to the desk when it is staffed and a transfer line is configured; otherwise it takes a callback request. Each condition counts on its own: an audiologist at the counter with no transfer line set up still means a callback request, as does a configured line during an uncovered lunch hour.

Several tasks are kept for your team on purpose. The receptionist never moves or cancels an appointment itself: your team confirms. Opening a wearer’s file, checking whether a repaired aid has come back from the manufacturer and recommending a device for someone’s hearing all stay outside its reach.

Clinical judgement stays with the audiologist. The receptionist does not comment on a hearing test result, suggest a setting or say whether a symptom is worrying. A caller who wants that kind of answer hears that the team will call back, and the request carries their question in their own words.

Languages are handled with the same care. French and English are verified on lines already in service, and we validate any other language on your line before go-live. The receptionist detects which language a caller is using and answers in it whenever it is one of those two.

Choosing between a transfer and a callback is a decision your practice makes once and then lives with every day. The guide on whether to transfer a call or take a callback request sets out how practices weigh the two.

Setting up your line and answering questions once it runs falls to one team, which works in French, from Luxembourg. We put the price for a hearing care practice in a written quote after a 30-minute conversation, and what such a quote includes is described on the pricing page.

Handled by ClinicAll

  • The appointment request and the times the patient prefers
  • Questions about the practice, from the information you have approved
  • The patient’s name, date of birth and reason for calling
  • The transfer to the front desk when it is staffed, otherwise a summarised callback request

Left to your team

  • Any medical advice
  • The decision on an urgent case: ClinicAll follows your rules
  • Moving or cancelling an appointment: ClinicAll takes the request, your team confirms
  • Confirming the requested appointment

Two more calls

A first fitting for a father · Illustrative call, not a real patient
  • Patient: Hi, I’m calling for my father. His ENT doctor says he needs hearing aids.
  • Receptionist: Thank you for calling. May I have your name and your father’s name?
  • Patient: I’m Paul, he’s Henri. Will the aids be fully reimbursed?
  • Receptionist: I can’t answer that, as it depends on a quotation the team prepares. I’ll ask them to explain it when they call. Does your father have the prescription with him?
  • Patient: Yes, he has it at home.
  • Receptionist: I’ve noted that. The team will call you back to arrange a first appointment for Henri and go through the reimbursement question.

Callback request taken for the team

Voices sound tinny since the last visit · Illustrative call, not a real patient
  • Patient: Good morning. Since my last appointment, voices sound a bit tinny through my aids.
  • Receptionist: Thank you for letting us know. Which aid is it, the left, the right or both?
  • Patient: Both. Sorry, am I talking to someone at the practice?
  • Receptionist: I’m the practice’s virtual receptionist. The desk is staffed and a transfer line is configured, so I’ll put you through to the team to arrange an adjustment.
  • Patient: Thank you.

Transferred to the team

Answering the phone at Hubert Vision since May 2026

calls answered
751
different callers
469
median call length
1 min 54 s
calls in September 2026
173

Hubert Vision, ophthalmology, Luxembourg and Belgium · production data from 31 May 2026 to 1 October 2026 · Read the Hubert Vision case study

Urgent cases

The receptionist gives no medical advice and applies your emergency rules. It does not judge how serious a loss of hearing is, ask about symptoms beyond what your rules name or reassure a worried caller. When a caller describes a situation your rules cover, it repeats the instruction you wrote for it, and nothing else.

Those rules are agreed with you before the line goes live and written in your practice’s words. A situation they do not cover is never improvised into a triage question. The receptionist takes a callback request, marks what the caller described and leaves the decision to your audiologist or to the ENT specialist you work with.

At a hearing care desk, the first case that deserves a rule is sudden hearing loss. In the Assurance Maladie’s guidance, losing hearing suddenly, even in one ear, calls for an urgent ENT specialist or, failing one, a hospital emergency department. Written into your rules, that guidance comes before any question about name or number, so nobody waits for a fitting slot that would be too late.

The same public guidance covers hearing loss after a head injury, or hearing loss that persists after exposure to intense noise. In both cases the Assurance Maladie points people urgently to hospital. A caller who mentions a fall, a blow to the head or a concert that left the ringing in place hears that instruction from your rule, not a slot in next week’s diary.

For the gravest cases the emergency numbers apply. Someone in France struck by sudden deafness who is unable to travel, especially following trauma or alongside a severe infection, should call 15 or 112 (Assurance Maladie — Surdité soudaine : alerter les urgences). When poor hearing rules out a voice call, 114 is the number to use (Assurance Maladie — Surdité soudaine : alerter les urgences). An audiology rule can carry both, since the person on the line is often a relative calling for someone who cannot hold a phone conversation.

Those three rules are French guidance, and practices elsewhere write their own. A practice in Luxembourg or near the German border can name the services its patients should use. The receptionist then repeats that wording in French or English, the two languages it handles on your line.

Once the call ends, the dashboard shows the reason given, the instruction repeated and the number to ring back. From that record your audiologist chooses whether to phone the patient or alert the ENT specialist first. The opening-hours coverage check maps the hours of your week when the phone is answered and those when it falls to voicemail.

The rules that apply

In France, the Assurance Maladie sets out the obligations of hearing aid professionals, and hearing tests and adjustments are among the tasks only a qualified hearing aid professional performs. Front-desk staff carry out neither, and the receptionist is bound by that limit just as they are. It never guides a wearer through altering a setting; asking for a test or an adjustment produces an appointment request for your audiologist.

Reimbursement is where a careless sentence costs most. A standardised quotation and a 100% Santé offer are required, and promising full reimbursement before eligibility has been checked is warned against (Assurance Maladie — Aides auditives : quelle prise en charge ?). The receptionist promises nothing about coverage: it records the question, notes whether the caller has a quotation and passes both to your team.

The data a reception desk needs is narrower than the file a practice holds. The CNIL asks practices to restrict reception staff to the data their duties require, and appointment management does not justify access to the whole medical record. The receptionist works inside that limit: it reads no record, and every request it writes for your team contains only what the caller said on the phone.

Relatives are where that limit shows. When a son rings to ask whether his mother’s new aids were adjusted or what her last test found, the receptionist says nothing about her care. His message goes to your team, which decides what can be passed on once the mother’s wishes are known. Calls of this kind are explored further in our guide to confidentiality on the phone.

In Luxembourg, coverage by the CNS starts with a prescription from an ENT specialist. The hearing aid professional then checks the criteria and submits the fitting report, so reception cannot guarantee that a patient is eligible. The receptionist can ask a new caller whether they already hold that prescription, and it leaves every question about the outcome to your team.

In Germany, the Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung explains that a first prescription needs a specialist’s assessment for statutory health insurance to cover it. A replacement device can be supplied by the hearing aid professional when no new medical decision is needed. For practices near the border, that difference shapes what the receptionist notes: whether the caller asks for a first device or a replacement. It still answers only in French or English.

A call about a failing aid or a hearing test is health data, and your practice answers for how it is processed. ClinicAll’s protection of that data is described on the security page. Before you switch on any voice assistant, the GDPR guide for voice assistants lists the points to check.

Frequently asked questions

Can an AI receptionist book hearing test appointments?

It takes the appointment request rather than writing it into your diary. The request reaches your team with the caller’s name, a number to ring back, the type of appointment and the times that suit them. Someone at the desk then calls the patient to agree the slot.

Does the receptionist help callers fix or adjust a hearing aid?

No, it does not troubleshoot or adjust a device. It records the fault or the problem in the caller’s words, which ear and which device if they know, and whether they are without a working aid. Your audiologist decides what happens next.

What does it do when a caller reports sudden hearing loss?

It applies the emergency rules your practice has set and gives no medical advice. If your rule follows the Assurance Maladie guidance, the caller hears that sudden hearing loss needs an ENT specialist or a hospital emergency department urgently. A situation your rules do not cover becomes a callback request, never a triage question.

Will it tell patients what a hearing aid costs or what insurance pays?

No. It does not quote a price, explain a quotation or promise any reimbursement. It notes the question and whether the caller already has a quotation, and your team calls back with the answer.

Do callers know they are speaking to an AI receptionist?

Yes, whenever they ask. It answers as your practice’s front desk and, when asked, says it is the practice’s virtual receptionist; it never claims to be a person.

Which languages does the receptionist speak?

French and English, verified on lines already in service. Any other language is tested on your own line before go-live, and German is not among the languages it offers today.

How much does ClinicAll cost for a hearing care practice?

Your price is quoted in writing after a 30-minute call about your practice and its phone line. There is no free trial. As for the term, it is set in the written quote, before go-live; every plan has a minimum term.

See it answer a call for your practice

A 30-minute demo by video. We show the assistant live and look at how it would fit your practice, your software and your rules.

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