What do telehealth patients contact support about?
Most telehealth support volume is administrative: getting into a visit, getting a prescription to the right pharmacy and making sense of a bill. Agent can resolve most of it with read access to scheduling, payment and prescription-status data, and hands every clinical question to your clinicians.
| Conversation type | Can Agent resolve it? | Hand off when | Data Agent needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Book, reschedule or cancel a visit | Yes | Urgent symptoms, or no slot inside the window set for that visit type | Open slots, visit type, the patient's current state, cancellation policy |
| Can't join a video visit, or the clinician hasn't appeared | Yes, for device, browser and link problems | Still not connected five minutes after start time | Start time, join link status, device and browser |
| Prescription status | Yes, status only | Any question about dose, side effects or interactions | E-prescribing status, pharmacy on file, time sent |
| Refill and pharmacy change requests | Partly: records and routes the request | Always for the decision, which is a clinician's | Prescription record, last visit date |
| Insurance eligibility and copays | Yes, when the eligibility check answers it | Denials, pending prior authorization, coverage disputes | Eligibility response, plan on file, copay rules |
| Unexpected charges and refunds | Yes, within a refund limit | Above the limit, chargeback or legal language, written estimate requests | Invoices and payments (Stripe), refund policy |
| Membership or subscription changes | Yes | Financial hardship or a care complaint given as the reason | Subscription status, next billing date |
| Login, identity checks, dependent access | Partly: resets and re-sent links | Proxy access, failed identity checks, mismatched details | Account status, verification result, proxy rules |
| Visit summaries, work notes, receipts, records requests | Yes for re-sending existing documents | Formal records requests, or a request to change a note | Document store, request log |
| Symptoms, side effects, test results | No | Always, at once; emergencies get the emergency message first | None: Agent routes without opening clinical notes |
Example set-up. Your clinical leadership decides every threshold.
What does an AI procedure for a failed video visit look like?
Write the procedure the way you would brief a new care coordinator. Agent turns each line into steps, and each step uses a connector with permissions you can revoke. This example covers a patient who can't get into a video visit, where minutes matter because a late connection can cost the whole slot.
Example procedure: “I can't join my visit”
- Verify the patient with date of birth and the phone or email on the account before discussing the visit.
- Look up today's visit: start time, clinician, join link status and the state the patient is in now. If your clinicians can't see patients there, hand off to scheduling.
- If the visit is more than 15 minutes away, text a device check link and a fresh join link to the number on file.
- If the visit has started, work through the fixes in order: supported browser, camera and microphone permissions, close other apps using the camera, reload, switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data.
- Still not connected five minutes after start time: post the name, visit time and steps tried to the coordinators' Slack channel, and offer audio only if the visit type allows it.
- If the clinician records a no-show caused by a technical failure, offer three open slots and waive the late-cancellation fee up to $50.
- If the patient mentions chest pain, trouble breathing, stroke signs, self-harm or any emergency, stop, send the emergency message and hand off to the on-call clinical team.
Guardrails: no clinical advice; no diagnosis, visit reason or medication name in texts; fee waivers capped at $50 per patient per month; handoff on negative sentiment or words such as “lawyer” or “medical board”. Tagging device and browser lets Insights flag a spike after one browser update.
Example conversation (illustrative, not a real patient)
Patient, portal chat, 2:03 pm: My appointment was at 2 and the screen says waiting for camera.
Agent: I can help. To confirm it's you, what's your date of birth?
Patient: April 12, 1961.
Agent: Thanks, Maria. Your clinician is in the room. Your browser is blocking the camera: tap the camera icon in the address bar, choose Allow, then open the link I've just texted you.
Patient: OK, I can see myself now.
Agent: You're connected. If the call drops, reply here and I'll send a new link.
What must a telehealth AI agent never do?
A telehealth AI agent must never give medical advice. Agent doesn't assess symptoms, interpret results, suggest doses or say whether a medication suits someone. Those questions go to a licensed clinician every time, with the conversation, the data Agent looked up and what it already tried attached.
Agent never
- Reassures about symptoms. “That sounds normal” is clinical advice.
- Approves or promises a prescription or refill. That includes controlled medications, which DEA lets clinicians prescribe by telemedicine without an in-person visit under a temporary extension through December 31, 2026.
- Shares visit details before verification, or with a relative who isn't an authorized proxy.
- Puts a diagnosis, medication name or visit reason in a text or email subject line.
Agent always hands off
- Symptom, side-effect and test-result questions.
- Emergency or crisis language, after telling the patient to call 911, or to call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
- Complaints about care, privacy concerns and legal language.
- Billing disputes above your refund limit.
How patient data is handled
A HIPAA covered entity needs a business associate agreement with any vendor handling protected health information on its behalf. Aftersales offers HIPAA support with a signed BAA on the Enterprise plan. Signing it doesn't make your platform compliant; your privacy officer still owns policy and configuration.
Keep advertising pixels off chat and portal pages. HHS has issued guidance on tracking technologies (a 2024 court ruling vacated part of it, so check the current version with counsel), and direct-to-consumer platforms outside HIPAA can fall under the FTC's Health Breach Notification Rule; the FTC's 2023 order against BetterHelp banned that counseling service from sharing health data for ads. See Aftersales security and our roundup of chatbots for HIPAA-regulated teams.
Which support channels matter most to telehealth patients?
Portal chat and SMS matter most, because both reach the patient on the device they are about to use for the visit.
- Chat inside the patient portal or app. The patient is already signed in, so verification is quick and Agent knows which visit they mean.
- SMS. Reminders, join links and “your clinician is running 10 minutes late” updates, kept free of clinical detail and sent under the texting consent rules your counsel sets.
- Phone. Many older patients call rather than type, and video isn't always realistic for them: a JAMA Internal Medicine study using 2018 data estimated that 38% of US adults aged 65 and over were not ready for video visits. Aftersales phone, on Growth and above, includes transfers and recording consent.
- Email and WhatsApp. Email for receipts, superbills and visit summaries; WhatsApp where patients already message. Agent replies in 31 languages.
Every channel lands in one shared inbox, so a patient who starts in chat and then calls doesn't explain the problem twice.
Which telehealth systems should an AI agent connect to?
Agent needs read access to the systems your coordinators already check, plus a short list of write actions. Stripe and Salesforce have built-in connectors. Scheduling, video, e-prescribing, EHR and eligibility systems connect through the Aftersales API or webhooks; confirm specific connectors on a call.
| System | What Agent reads | What Agent may do |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling or practice management system | Open slots, visit type, patient's state | Book, reschedule, cancel |
| Video visit platform | Room status, join link | Send a fresh link |
| E-prescribing and pharmacy status | Sent or not, pharmacy, time | Log a pharmacy change for review |
| EHR or patient record | Administrative fields only | Re-send a visit summary |
| Eligibility and billing system | Coverage result, copay, balance | Explain a charge |
| Stripe (self-pay visits and memberships) | Charges, subscriptions | Refund within limits; pause or cancel |
| Salesforce, if your CRM runs on it | Employer or health plan sponsor | Update the record |
Scope permissions so Agent can't open clinical notes at all. No conversation above needs them, and a narrow scope is easier to defend in a security risk assessment. If your human team stays on Zendesk, Freshdesk or Salesforce Service Cloud, Agent can also run inside it with no seats and no migration, billed per resolution with a minimum monthly commitment.
How much does AI customer service cost for a telehealth platform?
A mid-sized virtual care platform pays for seats on Scale plus $0.99 for each conversation Agent resolves. Price on the Enterprise plan if conversations will contain protected health information, because that plan carries the BAA.
Example assumptions: 8 support seats, 5,000 patient conversations a month, Agent resolving 50% early on (below the 71% median Aftersales sees after 90 days, since clinical questions always go to people), Copilot for every rep, annual billing at list prices.
| Line item | Calculation | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Scale seats | 8 × $109 | $872 |
| Agent resolutions | 2,500 × $0.99 | $2,475 |
| Copilot add-on | 8 × $29 | $232 |
| Conversations handed to people | 2,500 × $0 | $0 |
| Total | $3,579 |
That is about $0.72 per conversation across all 5,000. Agent never takes a seat. Clinical leads and your privacy officer can join as Lite seats to view, comment and approve; Scale includes 50. See every plan on the pricing page.
How do you roll out an AI agent for telehealth in 30 days?
Start narrow: one channel, one procedure, clinic hours only. Widen each week once the handoffs look right.
- Days 1 to 7: contracts and connections. Sign the BAA, connect scheduling, payments and prescription status, and have your medical director approve the escalation words and the emergency message.
- Days 8 to 14: visit access in portal chat. Turn Agent on for joining problems and scheduling during clinic hours. Coordinators read every handoff and fix procedures the same day.
- Days 15 to 21: prescriptions and billing. Add prescription status, refunds under your limit and membership changes, then open SMS and email.
- Days 22 to 30: after hours and review. Extend Agent to evenings and weekends. Review resolution rate and CSAT, and review every clinical handoff with your clinical lead before widening to after-hours.
Measure progress with the resolution rate guide, or browse other AI customer service guides by industry.