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Medical imaging centres

AI receptionist radiologist practices use for imaging calls and callback requests

ClinicAll is an AI receptionist radiologist practices and imaging centres put on their line for the calls the desk cannot take while staff register patients, prepare a room or chase a report. Picking up as your centre’s front desk, it finds out the caller’s name and the examination at stake, then writes the request down for your team. A patient who wants to know what is answering hears that it is the practice’s virtual receptionist, and at no point does it claim to be human.

An imaging line carries calls a general practice rarely hears. One patient holds a prescription for an MRI and wants the earliest slot, another asks whether to fast before an abdominal ultrasound, a third needs to say she might be pregnant before her CT scan. The receptionist gives no medical advice, applies your emergency rules and keeps every clinical question for the radiologist.

French and English are verified on lines already in service, and we validate any other language on your line before go-live. If your group also runs other kinds of practice, the list of specialties ClinicAll serves puts this page in context. What follows covers the calls a radiology desk fields, the way examination requests come back to your staff and the handling of urgent symptoms. It closes with the professional rules that apply 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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An MRI prescription and a pacemaker · Illustrative call, not a real patient
  • Receptionist: Hello, you’ve reached the practice. What can I do for you?
  • Patient: My doctor has prescribed an MRI of my lower back and I’d like an appointment.
  • Receptionist: I can take your request for the team. May I have your name?
  • Patient: I’m Henri. I should mention that I have a pacemaker.
  • Receptionist: Thank you, Henri. I’ve noted the pacemaker so the radiologist sees it before anything is arranged. Which days suit you?
  • Patient: Mondays or Wednesdays, ideally after two in the afternoon.
  • Receptionist: I’ve noted an MRI request for your lower back, Monday or Wednesday afternoons, with the pacemaker mentioned. The team will call you back to confirm.

Callback request taken for the team

Your calls, in practice

A booking for a prescribed examination begins with the prescription. The receptionist asks what the doctor ordered, whether an X-ray, an ultrasound, a vascular Doppler, a mammography, a CT scan or an MRI, and for which part of the body. Only then does it note who the patient is, when they were born, where to reach them and which days they can come.

Calls about an existing appointment come next: a patient who can no longer make Thursday’s scan, or who wants to cancel because the doctor changed the plan. It never moves or cancels an appointment itself: your team confirms. The receptionist records which examination the call concerns, when it was booked for and what the patient now wants, so the slot can be released once your team has spoken to them.

Waiting lists for CT and MRI bring the earlier-slot call. A patient asks what is open this week, or whether they can come sooner if someone else drops out. The receptionist cannot see your diary and never suggests that a slot exists; it notes the request for an earlier appointment, how much notice the patient needs and any days they cannot come.

Preparation questions arrive in the days before the examination. Patients want to know whether to come fasting, with a full bladder, with their previous images or with the prescription in hand. The receptionist repeats only the preparation notes your team wrote for each type of examination at setup, and anything those notes do not cover becomes a callback request.

After the examination, the calls turn to images and the report. A patient asks when the report will be ready, how to get the images or whether a copy can go to the referring specialist. The receptionist explains the arrangements your centre has described to it, whether collection at the desk, a disc or an online portal, and takes a callback request for anything else.

Questions about payment cover the fee for an examination, what the health insurance will reimburse and whether the centre bills the insurer directly. The receptionist quotes no amount for a particular examination and promises no reimbursement. It can repeat the general billing information you approved, such as whether you practise direct billing, and notes the rest for your team to answer with the patient’s file open.

Some callers need to tell you something before they lie on the table. A pregnancy, a pacemaker or another implant, an allergy to a contrast agent or kidney disease can change how, or whether, an examination takes place. The receptionist decides neither way: it writes down what the patient said, in their words, and puts it in the summary your team reads first.

Practical calls are over fastest: the centre’s address, parking, step-free access to the building and how long before the slot to arrive for registration. Every answer comes from details your centre has signed off; if something is missing, the caller hears as much and leaves a callback request. Meanwhile, whoever is on registration can stay with the patient already at the counter, prescription in hand.

Some callers will only talk to a member of staff. The receptionist transfers to the desk when it is staffed and a transfer line is configured; otherwise it takes a callback request. The opening-hours coverage tool compares the hours your desk is open with the hours patients actually phone, and the guide to choosing a transfer or a callback helps you pick which calls go through.

  • Book an appointment for a prescribed examination
  • Reschedule or cancel an appointment
  • Check availability and request an earlier appointment
  • Check examination preparation and documents to bring
  • Ask how to obtain images and the examination report
  • Ask about fees, reimbursement and direct billing to health insurance
  • Report pregnancy, an implant, an allergy or kidney disease before the examination
  • Check the address, access to the centre and arrival time

What ClinicAll takes, and what it leaves to you

Your centre receives every appointment as a callback request; none is written straight into the diary. A request states the prescribed examination, the patient, a number to ring and the days and times that suit them. Your team picks it up in the dashboard and rings the patient back to agree the slot.

Imaging leaves little room for guesswork about the diary. An MRI slot depends on the machine, the length of the protocol the radiologist chose and sometimes an injection of contrast; a mammography may need an ultrasound on the same visit. Your team knows those constraints, and the receptionist leaves the choice of slot to the people who do.

Take Nadia, who rings on a Tuesday lunchtime with a prescription for a knee MRI. The receptionist notes the examination, that she prefers early mornings and that she mentioned a metal plate from an old fracture. Whoever calls her back sees the plate before offering a time and can check it with the radiologist first.

Whoever confirms the appointment may want the prescription before the day. The receptionist notes which doctor wrote it and whether the patient has it to hand, so your team can ask for a copy on the callback. It never tells a caller that a prescription is complete or valid: that check stays at your desk.

Changes follow the same path. A patient who rings to move an ultrasound or cancel a CT scan leaves a callback request, and the slot stays in your diary until your team has spoken to them. A released slot is then a decision someone at the centre made, and it can go straight to a patient who asked for an earlier date.

The receptionist leaves the diary, the protocol and every clinical judgement to your team and your radiologists. It never opens a patient’s record and never tells a caller that a time is available. What it takes off your desk is the phone ringing during registration and the hurried notes that follow.

The people who configure ClinicAll for your centre, and who take your questions once the line is open, form one team that works in French, from Luxembourg. An imaging centre receives its price in writing following a 30-minute conversation; how to request that quote is on the pricing page. Before that call, the missed-calls calculator gives you an estimate built from your own call figures.

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 patient asking what her report means, with the desk open · Illustrative call, not a real patient
  • Patient: I’ve just read my ultrasound report online and there’s a word I don’t understand. Is it serious?
  • Receptionist: I can’t interpret a report; that is for the radiologist. The desk is staffed right now and a transfer line is configured, so I can put you through. May I have your first name?
  • Patient: Amélie. Am I talking to a machine?
  • Receptionist: I’m the practice’s virtual receptionist. I’ll transfer you to the desk now and let them know your question is about your ultrasound report.

Transferred to the team

Moving a mammography · Illustrative call, not a real patient
  • Patient: Hello, I have a mammography on Friday morning but I won’t be able to make it.
  • Receptionist: I’ll pass that to the team. I can’t move the appointment myself: the team will call you back to arrange another time. What is your name?
  • Patient: Marion. Could they also tell me whether to bring my previous images?
  • Receptionist: I’ll add that question to your request. Which days would suit you instead?
  • Patient: Any morning the week after.
  • Receptionist: I’ve noted that you’d like to move Friday’s mammography to a morning the following week, with your question about previous images. The team will call you back.

Callback request taken for 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

When a caller to your imaging centre describes something worrying, the receptionist gives no medical advice and applies your emergency rules. Weighing up symptoms, asking clinical questions on its own initiative or implying that a scan will settle things is outside its role. If what the caller says fits a rule, the instruction you wrote is what they hear.

An imaging centre carries a particular risk: a patient who is unwell may ring to bring a scan forward rather than call for help. The rules you set before go-live make the receptionist answer the emergency, not the booking request. Your team writes them with us, in the centre’s own words, before the line opens to patients.

For stroke signs, the Assurance Maladie states on ameli.fr that sudden facial paralysis, weakness in a limb or sudden difficulty speaking requires an immediate call to 15 or 112, even if the signs disappear. Nobody with those signs should wait for an imaging appointment. A rule built on that guidance has the receptionist give the instruction first, before it asks for a name.

Chest pain matters just as much here, because a caller may ask for a quick scan of the chest. For squeezing chest pain spreading to the arms or jaw, the Assurance Maladie tells people on ameli.fr to call 15 or 112. A scheduled examination is not an answer to that call, so the receptionist offers none and repeats the emergency number your rule names.

Sometimes the caller is a relative beside someone who has collapsed. For a person who does not regain consciousness, is not breathing or has an abnormal pulse, the Assurance Maladie advises on ameli.fr to call 15 or 112. Your rule has the receptionist say so at once, without a single question about an appointment.

Patients living in Germany follow the KBV, which sends life-threatening emergencies to 112. Acute symptoms that are not life-threatening but cannot wait for the next day go to 116117 while the practice is closed, again according to the KBV. An imaging centre that sees patients from across the border may put both numbers in its rules; the receptionist keeps answering in French or English, so only the content of the instruction changes.

Calls outside these rules are not improvised. A patient worried about pain after a guided biopsy, or a rash after an injection of contrast, hears no reassurance and no diagnosis. The receptionist records the description in the patient’s words and applies your emergency rules. It transfers to the desk when it is staffed and a transfer line is configured; otherwise it takes a callback request.

Your team sees each of these calls afterwards, with what the caller described and the instruction the receptionist gave. The radiologist can then decide whether the patient needs a call from the centre. The guide on the hours when patients call a practice helps you decide which instructions matter at which time of day.

The rules that apply

French reception staff carry a personal duty of professional confidentiality according to the Conseil national de l’Ordre des médecins; it covers who the patients are and what they reveal while booking. An imaging desk feels this every day, because the examination itself can say a lot: a follow-up mammography or a staging CT is already health information. The receptionist cannot see your diary, so it has nothing to confirm to a caller asking whether someone is booked.

A spouse ringing to ask when a husband’s scan is, or an employer asking whether an employee came in, leaves with a callback request and no information. Your team decides what may be shared, with the patient’s wishes in mind. On the call itself, the caller hears only that the centre will ring back.

Diagnosis is the doctor’s responsibility under the Ordre’s code of ethics, so reception passes every request to interpret images or results to the radiologist without making a diagnosis. That request reaches an imaging desk in several forms: a patient reading the report online, a relative asking whether a shadow is serious, a caller who could not reach the doctor who prescribed the scan. The receptionist answers none of them on substance and writes each one down for the radiologist.

The practical guide to personal data protection published by the CNOM and the CNIL asks practices to collect only the data needed for the appointment, restrict access and secure the appointment calendar. It adds that administrative staff must not have unrestricted access to medical records. The receptionist asks for what a callback needs and opens no record at all. What ClinicAll does with the data from your centre’s calls is described on our security page, while the guide to the GDPR and voice assistants in a practice lists what to check on your side.

In Luxembourg, the CNS–AMMD convention for doctors does not let reception amend on its own a prescription that is difficult to carry out. Under the CNS–AMMD convention for doctors, Article 29 requires medical authorisation and documentation when the prescription is not replaced in full. A caller who asks to swap an MRI for a CT scan because it could happen sooner gets no yes or no from the receptionist: the request goes to the radiologist. Centres in the capital will find the local picture on the Luxembourg City page.

In Germany, the Bundesmantelvertrag-Ärzte agreed by the KBV and the GKV-Spitzenverband makes a medical referral, the Überweisung, a condition of statutory outpatient radiology. The exception is the organised mammography screening programme, which women can join without one. The receptionist does not judge whether a referral is needed or valid; it notes what the caller says about it, and your team checks before the appointment is confirmed.

These rules surface on the phone in small moments, from a message left for the wrong person to a question asked within earshot of the waiting room. The guide to keeping medical confidentiality on the phone works through them one at a time, and the specialties ClinicAll covers each set out the rules of their own profession.

Frequently asked questions

Can an AI receptionist book MRI or CT appointments for a radiology practice?

It takes the appointment request, and your team books the slot. The request names the examination prescribed, the patient, a number to call back and the times that suit them. Appointments reach you as callback requests, not as diary entries, so the choice of machine and protocol stays with your team.

Will the receptionist tell a patient what their scan or report shows?

No. It does not read, explain or comment on images or reports. Any request to interpret a result goes to the radiologist, and the patient hears that the centre will call back.

What happens if a patient mentions a pacemaker, a pregnancy or a contrast allergy?

The receptionist writes down exactly what the patient said and includes it in the request your team reads. It does not say whether the examination can go ahead. That decision belongs to the radiologist, who sees the information before anyone confirms a slot.

How does it handle a caller with stroke signs or chest pain?

It applies the emergency rules your centre set before go-live and gives no medical advice. A rule built on the Assurance Maladie guidance directs the caller to the emergency number instead of offering a scheduled examination. Your team sees the call afterwards with the instruction given.

Can patients reschedule or cancel an examination with it?

They can ask, and the receptionist passes the request on. It never moves or cancels an appointment itself: your team confirms. The slot stays in your diary until someone at the centre has spoken to the patient.

Do callers know they are speaking to a virtual receptionist?

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

Is there a free trial?

No. The price is quoted in writing after a 30-minute call. The term 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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